Jim Davis

Jim Davis is the American cartoonist who created the comic strip Garfield, which became one of the most widely syndicated comics in the world. His lazy, lasagna-loving orange tabby has appeared in newspapers, books, animated specials, and feature films since 1978.

James Robert Davis was born on July 28, 1945, in Marion, Indiana, and grew up on a farm near Fairmount with around two dozen cats. Asthma kept him indoors as a child, where his mother encouraged him to draw to pass the time.

He attended Ball State University, studying art and business, then worked in advertising before assisting cartoonist Tom Ryan on the strip Tumbleweeds. In 1978, after a previous strip about a bug named Gnorm Gnat failed to find a buyer, Davis launched Garfield through United Feature Syndicate.

The strip caught on quickly, and by the mid-1980s Garfield ran in thousands of newspapers. Davis founded Paws, Inc. in 1981 to manage the brand, oversaw animated television specials such as Garfield in the Rough, and produced books that reached the top of the New York Times bestseller list.

Their name Jim derives from the Hebrew name Jacob, meaning supplanter, by way of James. Jim has long been a common nickname in English-speaking countries.