The Death of Garfield

Few characters represent the spirit of crass commercialization, late-stage capitalism, and shameless pandering more effectively than Garfield.

Garfield creator Jim Davis has always been candid that his primary motivations were financial, not artistic. He consciously set out to create a character with mass-market appeal, emphasizing familiarity and relatability over creativity or even humour. “By virtue of being a cat, Garfield’s not black, white, male or female, young or old, or a particular nationality,” Davis explained. “Garfield is an international character. Therefore I don’t even use seasons. The only holiday I recognized is Christmas. I don’t use rhyming gags, plays on words, colloquialisms, in an effort to make Garfield apply to virtually any society where he may appear.”

It is no accident that Garfield hates Mondays and loves coffee…

Davis’ marketing savvy paid off. By 1982, less than 5 years after Garfield’s debut, the strip already appeared in an impressive 1,400 newspapers world-wide. Today, Garfield holds a Guinness World Record for being the most widely syndicated comic strip in history.

Davis was quick to leverage Garfield’s popularity for financial gain, seldom turning down a licensing or merchandising opportunity. Today, Garfield’s iconic image appears not only in comic books, but also on plushies, Vegas slot machines, toilet seat covers, educational materials, and innumerable other consumer products, not to mention a Garfield restaurant and a hilariously weird mobile app called Garfield Eats. All this has made Jim Davis extraordinarily wealthy. Every year, sales of Garfield merchandise gross in the billions of dollars world-wide.

In this series of images, the Garfield plushie and the coins are symbols of consumer capitalism—familiar icons that represent the valuation of corporate profit over all else. Placing these items alongside symbols of mortality (animal remains, withered flowers, an extinguished candle) is a reminder that such pursuits are nothing but vanity in the face of certain death. As the author of Ecclesiastes put it: “Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless. As goods increase, so do those who consume them. And what benefit are they to the owner except to feast his eyes on them?” (Ecclesiastes 5:10-11)

Although the appropriation of Garfield the cartoon cat may seem discordant with the aesthetics of 17th-century Dutch still life, I am very much following in the traditions of that genre. Vanitas paintings frequently used the juxtaposition of money or luxury consumer goods with human skulls as a critique of greed, consumerism, and capitalism. These images, like the works of the Dutch masters, are intended as a visual reminder that what we do with our short time on this earth matters, and there are higher callings than the blind pursuit of wealth and status above all else.

It should be noted that I’m hardly the first person to accentuate the soullessness of the Garfield character in a work of art. The parody strip Garfield Minus Garfield was based around the simple idea of photoshopping Garfield out of classic Davis strips. The result is a grim portrait of Garfield’s owner, Jon Arbuckle, as a lonely, troubled man. The viral comic strip I’m Sorry Jon, along with the subreddit that it spawned, works similarly. In many ways, Garfield is uniquely well-suited to this kind of subversion. The character is iconic enough to be instantly recognizable, but also sterile enough that the introduction of any off-brand elements creates an unsettling feeling of dissonance.

On the enduring legacy of Garfield, Davis said: “I think part of the appeal is, you know, like with Peanuts, you always want to go back and see Snoopy on the dog house. In such a changing world [readers] want to know that some things stay the same, so I feel a responsibility to keep Garfield loving lasagna and hating Mondays; he’s never going to go on a diet.”

In other words, the timeless and unchanging nature of the character—Garfield’s  permanence—is what accounts for his financial success.

This is, of course, an illusion.

Neither Garfield, nor the enormous wealth he has garnered for his creator, are permanent.

In time, Garfield’s iconic image, like any other corporate mascot, will fade from public consciousness.

And in spite of his great wealth, precisely the same fate awaits Jim Davis that awaits us all.