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.

Doesn’t that impugn a whole lot of classics?

Dudes sitting in a smoky room: “Yeah, so the pig’s a big fat pig with mobility issues and get this, he stutters hahahaha gonna sell like moonshine, go tell the artists.”

> Doesn’t that impugn a whole lot of classics?

I'm sure it impugns many of the classics (and later), not only Garfield! In my mind, it does impugn He-Man, G.I. Joe, etc. YMMV, of course.

> Dudes sitting in a smoky room: “Yeah, so the pig’s a big fat pig with mobility issues and get this, he stutters hahahaha gonna sell like moonshine, go tell the artists.”

There was a lot of artistry in the Looney Toons, the artists were both doing it for the money (of course) but also out of love for cartoons and they had ideas about them. It wasn't pure cold hearted market research. They didn't go "what would sell more stuffed toys, a pig or a rabbit?".

There must have been some of this too, of course, but have you read memories or articles about Tex Avery and other people involved? They truly cared about their craft. They had ideas about what they wanted to achieve, and it wasn't just "make money".