Garfield Minus Garfield

Something that I find delightful about this project is that Jim Davis approves of it!

From Wikipedia: "Jim Davis, the creator of Garfield, approved of the project, and an official Garfield book (also called Garfield Minus Garfield) was published by his company. It was mainly edited comics by Walsh, with some comics contributed by Davis."

Jim created Garfield for money[1]. It's not surprising that he likes anything that can make him more money, he isn't personally tied to the character.

[1] Garfield was originally created by Davis with the intention to come up with a 'good, marketable character' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garfield

It's still notable that Jim Davis has that level of chill about it. Someone with a mercenary capitalist attitude toward their work can be just as much a control freak as Bill Watterson. (Not being judgmental; Watterson's position is completely valid too.)

It honestly seems a little silly to worry about the purity of the intent of an artist.

That Davis did it for the money is just "meh". Most people work for money.

I don't think the concern is that Davis "did it for the money", and that's not a fair representation of why some of us mock Jim Davis.

I don't think anybody is arguing comic authors shouldn't make money out of their work.

The concern is that Garfield is the product of conscious market research and not whatever we imagine a comic artist goes through when creating their comics. You can dismiss this as some ridiculous search for "purity", but wouldn't you say most people imagine Watterson, Schultz, etc. went through a process more or less "I liked these other cartoons, and wouldn't it be cool to make something about <idea>/<childhood memories>/<something that inspired me>/<something that worries me>" vs "hey, let's make money, what kind of character would make me the most money?".

Davis is not the only one, of course.

Art without money is madness. Money without art dies on the vine in obscurity or pays its dues in criticism through time.

99% of everything commercially produced is somewhere between these and, if made by a person, part of a cannon, a body of work that grows and changes as the person does.

Just because an artist invites us into their mind does not mean we don’t owe them the respect we’d give a stranger. At least that’s how I look at it.

We don't owe Jim Davis any kind of respect as an artist. He must earn it.

In the scale you're describing, he leans heavily towards making money and away from the art part. It's OK to feel scorn for this. It's also OK to respect it, but that's not me.

> Art without money is madness

This isn't what my comment was about, but I cannot refrain from answering: art can exist perfectly well without money. I'd say the vast majority of art humanity produces is not related to money at all. It is definitely not madness without money.

> Money without art dies on the vine in obscurity or pays its dues in criticism through time.

Sadly, I don't think the former is true, and I don't think the latter matters enough.