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Information about Jim Davis (cartoonist)

For other people named James Davis, see James Davis (disambiguation).


James Robert "Jim" Davis (born July 28, 1945), is an American cartoonist who created the popular comic strip Garfield.

Biography

Personal

Jim Davis was born in Fairmount, Indiana, near Marion, where he grew up on a small farm with his father Jim (Sr.), mother Betty, brother Dave, and 25 cats. Davis' childhood on a farm parallels the life of his cartoon character Garfield's owner, Jon Arbuckle, who was also raised on a farm with his parents and a brother, Doc Boy. Jon, too, is a cartoonist, and also celebrates his birthday on July 28.

Davis attended Ball State University. While attending Ball State, he became a member of the Theta Xi fraternity.

Davis as of 2007 resides in Muncie, Indiana, where he and his staff produce Garfield under his company, Paws, Inc., begun in 1981. He was married to Carolyn, a singer and elementary teacher whom he met while both were attending college, and has a son named James with her. However, the couple divorced, and Davis since 2000 has been married to Jill, Paws' senior vice president of licensing, who has worked there approximately 25 years.

Ironically, Davis did not own cats when he started Garfield because of Carolyn's allergies, but they owned a Labrador retriever named Molly. With Jill, the family has expanded to include children Ashley and Chris; three grandchildren, Chloe, Carly and Cody; cats, Spunky and Nermal; and a dog, Pooky.

Professional

Prior to creating Garfield, Davis worked for a local advertising agency and in 1969 began assisting Tom Ryan's comic strip, Tumbleweeds. He then created a comic strip, Gnorm Gnat, that ran for five years in The Muskegon Chronicle, a Michigan newspaper. Davis tried to sell it to a national comic strip syndicate, but an editor told him, "Your art is good, your gags are great, but bugs — nobody can relate with bugs!"

On June 19, 1978, Garfield started syndication in 41 newspapers. It went on to become a long-running international hit, remaining so as of 2007.

Davis in the 1980s also created the barnyard-slapstick comic strip U.S. Acres, featuring Orson the Pig. Outside the U.S., the strip was known as Orson's Farm. Davis also created a 2000-2003 strip based on the toy Mr. Potato Head.

In the 2005, Davis appeared in the music video "Lazy Muncie", a parody of the Saturday Night Live video "Lazy Sunday".

Garfield

The comic strip Garfield appears in more than 2,500 newspapers as of 2007. The character is named after Davis' grandfather, James Garfield Davis, who in turn had been named after the assassinated U.S. President James Abram Garfield.

Garfield and Friends was an animated TV series that ran on CBS from 1988-1994. Also created by Davis, it featured segments based on his comic strips.

The live-action was released to theaters in summer 2004. Though commercially successful internationally, the film, which featured Bill Murray as the voice of Garfield, received generally negative reviews. A theatrical sequel, , was released in U.S. movie theatres on June 16, 2006. A fully animated CGI called Garfield Gets Real, written by Davis, will be released direct-to-video (and possibly receive a limited theatrical showing) in the Fall of 2007.

Awards

References



Garfield
Characters
Garfield | Jon Arbuckle | Odie | Nermal | Arlene | List of Garfield characters
Television specials
Here Comes Garfield | Garfield on the Town | Garfield in the Rough | Garfield's Halloween Adventure | Garfield in Paradise | A Garfield Christmas | Garfield Goes Hollywood | Happy Birthday, Garfield | | Garfield's Babes and Bullets | Garfield's Thanksgiving | Garfield's Feline Fantasies | Garfield Gets a Life
Video games
Garfield | | | | Garfield Labyrinth | | Garfield's Mad About Cats | | Garfield & His Nine Lives | | Garfield's Nightmare | | Garfield Gets Real
Films
Garfield | | Garfield Gets Real
Other media
Am I Cool or What? | Garfield As Himself | Garfield and Friends | List of Garfield and Friends episodes | Garfield's Holiday Celebrations | Pet Force | | |
Other
Jim Davis | U.S. Acres | Gnorm Gnat | Mr. Potato Head | Comic strip switcheroo
James Davis is the name of several people:
  • James E. Davis (Computer Scientist) professor at University of California, Santa Cruz
  • James Davis (basketball), (NBA, 1955)
  • James Davis (CEO), chairman of New Balance

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July 28 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

Events

  • 1540 - Thomas Cromwell is executed on order from Henry VIII of England on charges of treason.

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19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1910s  1920s  1930s  - 1940s -  1950s  1960s  1970s
1940 1941 1942 - 1943 - 1944 1945 1946

Year 1945 (MCMXLV
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Motto
"In God We Trust"   (since 1956)
"E Pluribus Unum"   ("From Many, One"; Latin, traditional)
Anthem
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cartoonist or comic strip creator is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. The term can also be applied to those who produce comic books, manga, editorial cartoons, comic strips, and, rarely, those working in animation.
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'Gnorm Gnat'
Followed by 'U.S. Acres' Garfield is a daily-syndicated comic strip created by Jim Davis. It chronicles the life of the title character, Garfield, a tabby cat, his owner, Jon Arbuckle, and the dog, Odie.
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Town of Fairmount, Indiana
Location in the state of Indiana
Coordinates:
Country United States
State Indiana
County Grant
Area
 - Town  1.
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City of Marion
Location in the state of Indiana
Coordinates:
Country United States
State Indiana
County Grant
Area
 - City  13.3 sq mi (34.
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F. s. catus

Trinomial name
Felis silvestris catus
(Linnaeus, 1758)

Synonyms
Felis lybica invalid junior synonym
Felis catus invalid junior synonym[2]

The cat (
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July 28 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

Events

  • 1540 - Thomas Cromwell is executed on order from Henry VIII of England on charges of treason.

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Ball State University is a state-run research university located in Muncie, Indiana, USA. Located on the northwest side of the city, Ball State's campus spans more than 1,000 acres (4 km²).
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Theta Xi (ΘΞ) is a fraternity founded at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York on 29 April 1864. Theta Xi is the only fraternity to be established during the American Civil War.
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fraternity" and "sorority" (from the Latin words frater and soror, meaning "brother" and "sister" respectively) may be used to describe many social and charitable organizations, for
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City of Muncie, Indiana
Nickname: Middletown USA
Location in the state of Indiana
Coordinates:
Country United States
State Indiana
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For the part of the animal anatomy, see .
Paws, Inc. was founded in 1981 by Jim Davis to support the Garfield comic strip and its licensing. It is located in Muncie, Indiana and has a staff of almost twenty artists and writers.
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F. s. catus

Trinomial name
Felis silvestris catus
(Linnaeus, 1758)

Synonyms
Felis lybica invalid junior synonym
Felis catus invalid junior synonym[2]

The cat (
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Labrador Retriever (also Labrador or Lab for short), is one of several kinds of retriever, a type of gun dog. The Labrador is widely considered the most popular breed of dog (by registered ownership) in the world, and is by a large margin the most popular breed by
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For the plant, see .
Tumbleweeds may refer to:
  • Tumbleweeds (comic strip), a comic strip drawn by Tom K. Ryan
  • Tumbleweeds (1925 film), a Western film directed by, produced by, and starring William S.

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Gnorm Gnat was a comic strip by Jim Davis based on fictional insects, especially a gnat named Gnorm. The strip appeared in The Pendleton Times in Pendleton, Indiana in the 1970s, but failures to take the character to more mainstream success led Davis to create the
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State of Michigan

Flag of Michigan Seal
Nickname(s): The Wolverine State,
The Great Lakes State,
The Automotive State,
Winter Water Wonderland
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bank syndicate or often only as a syndicate.

In investment banking, refers to a group of investment banks that share underwriting risk in respect to an issuer's securities. Referred to as the underwriting syndicate.
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June 19 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

Events

  • 1179 - The Norwegian Battle of Kalvskinnet outside Nidaros.

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19th century - 20th century - 21st century
1940s  1950s  1960s  - 1970s -  1980s  1990s  2000s
1975 1976 1977 - 1978 - 1979 1980 1981

Year 1978 (MCMLXXVIII
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Slapstick is a type of comedy involving exaggerated physical violence or activities (e.g., a character being hit in the face with a frying pan or running full speed into a wall).
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U.S.
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Mr. Potato Head is a popular children's doll, consisting of a plastic model of a potato. Originally, the potato is blank; however, it can be decorated with numerous attachable plastic parts to make a face, including a mustache, hat, nose and other features.

History

Mr.
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A music video is a short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music, most commonly a song. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings.
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Saturday Night Live (SNL) is a weekly late night 90 minute American comedy-variety show based in New York City that has been broadcast live by NBC on Saturday nights since October 11, 1975.
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Lazy Sunday is a music video starring Saturday Night Live cast members Chris Parnell and Andy Samberg that aired on the December 17, 2005, episode of the show. It was the second SNL Digital Short to be aired.
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'Gnorm Gnat'
Followed by 'U.S. Acres' Garfield is a daily-syndicated comic strip created by Jim Davis. It chronicles the life of the title character, Garfield, a tabby cat, his owner, Jon Arbuckle, and the dog, Odie.
..... Click the link for more information.


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