Summary
As the creator of the most syndicated comic in the world,Garfield’s Jim Davis has given more than his fair share of interviews, with fans poring over the inspirations and techniques that made his sarcastic tabby character iconic the world over. However, in all those interviewsDavis has been able to dodge one question, and that’s because from the very beginning ofGarfield, he was planning how to make sure it didn’t come up.
Garfieldrevolves around the titular cat and his cast of friends - most prominentlythe dull-witted dog Odieand Garfield’s owner Jon Arbuckle. Indeed, Jon always seems to be around the house to get into shenanigans with the two, which might prompt some readers to wonder what he does for a living. However, Jim Davis got out ahead of this question inGarfield’s very first strip,locking down the idea that Jon was a cartoonist- an idea he was relucant to explore in future strips but had to include because he didn’t want to be asked about it later.
In a 2018 interview withMental Floss, Davis revealed that whilehe didn’t want to depict Jon’s work life, he also didn’t want to spend the rest of his career fielding questions about it. As a result, he shared Jon’s profession as early as possible, but then essentially ignored it for the rest of the strip’s history.
I didn’t want to tread on the fact that Jon’s a cartoonist because my biggest fear was getting a little too inside. That it would be a little too easy for me to write. I didn’t want to lose the readers just for my own enjoyment, or for a handful of peers. Also, I purposely gave him a job right off the top for the reason that The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet never explained what Ozzie did for a living. Nobody ever knew because he was always in the house with Harriet and Ricky and David. Just hanging around. So I thought I would give Jon a job right off the top to avoid being asked what he does for a living in interviews.
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Davis has actually answered all ofGarfield’s biggest mysteries, from why he loves lasagna to where the comic strip is set.
Garfield’s Jon Arbuckle Is a Professional Cartoonist
Jim Davis Revealed Jon’s Job Once, Then Totally Ignored It
Like Davis, Jon Arbuckle is a cartoonist, explaining why he spends so much time at home with his pets. Davis references the sitcomThe Adventures of Ozzie and Harrietin his explanation for why he wanted to establish Jon’s profession. The sitcom ran from 1952 to 1966, with a successful run on radio before becoming a fixture on television. During the show’s run, it became a running joke among fans to speculate what Ozzie did for a living, since it wasn’t ever covered on-screen. Ozzie often referenced appointments downtown, but never went further - at least on TV. In the related but questionably canon movieHere Come the Nelsons, the plot did establish Ozzie as an ad executive.
Until recently,The Adventures of Ozzie and Harrietheld therecord for the longest running live-action sitcomon American television, thoughIt’s Always Sunny in Philadelphiahas since taken that title.
While Davis wanted to establish Jon’s profession, he avoided delving into his work as he was worried about being too self-referential and alienating his readership. That was a smart call - in a 2019 interview withVice, Davis noted thatthe strip’s immense success around the world is due to its relatability, with sentiments and gags that make sense no matter where you’re from. Davis summed up this important aspect ofGarfield’s success toMental Floss, saying,“I would like for readers in Sydney, Australia to think that Garfield lives next door.”
However, for fans who wish they knew what Jon’s comics are like, a fun piece of head canon is to imagine thatJim Davis' first comic Gnorm Gnatis the in-world work of Jon. This is particularly satisfying, since Davis re-used several gags fromGnorm GnatinGarfield, which can be read as Jon finding inspiration for his work in his everyday mishaps alongside his cat.
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Garfield does have one unanswered question, with fans even speculating that Jon is a murderer as a way to answer it.
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Garfield’s Love of Lasagna and Hatred of Mondays Have Explanations
Jon Arbuckle’s profession isn’t the only mystery that puzzles fans ofGarfield, but most questions about the tabby cat’s life do have an official answer. For example,Garfield’s love of lasagna isn’t random - he’s obsessed with the food because he was born in the kitchen of an Italian restaurant, gaining a taste for the cuisine in his formative days. Likewise, Davis confirmed toHuffpostin 2017 that Garfield hates Mondays partly because they remind him of the boring, repetitive cycle of his lazy life, and partly because - likely due to his bad mood - bad things tend to happen to him on Mondays. Davis states:
Garfield does not have a job, Garfield does not go to school and every day is the same. Nevertheless every Monday is just a reminder that his life is the same old, same old cycling again and for some reason even though his life is pretty much the same every day on Mondays specifically, awful things tend to happen to him physically.
Likewise, while Davis keeps the setting ofGarfieldvague in order to make the comic relatable to all readers, it’s officially set in Muncie, Indiana - Davis' own hometown; another detail where Davis has shared the official answer, even though the strip itself goes to pains to keep things generic.
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Fan theories range from the idea that Jon killed Lyman to him being abducted by aliens…
Garfield Does Have One Unanswered Mystery
The Comic’s Weird Decision Has Fans Speculating That Jon Is a Killer
One mystery that Davishasn’tofficially answered is the fate of Lyman.Lyman was a side characterinJon(the strip which eventually becameGarfield, once Davis shifted focus to the cat over his owner), and is actually introduced as the owner of Odie the dog. Davis intended Lyman to give Jon someone to talk to, howeveras Garfield took a bigger and bigger role in the strip, Lyman became surplus to requirementand Davis started featuring him less and less, with the character finally disappearing after his final (uneventful) strip in 1983.
Like Ozzie’s job, Lyman’s disappearance has become a running joke for fans ofGarfield, especially because Jon kept Odie without any explanation.Fan theories range from the idea that Jon killed Lyman to him being abducted by aliens, mostly because of a strip that shows him on the front page of a newspaper while Jon and Garfield discuss abductions. Jim Davis added fuel to the fire in 1998’s20 Years & Still Kicking! Garfield’s Twentieth Anniversary Collection, including a joking list of explanations for Lyman’s disappearance that included the exhortation"don’t look in Jon’s basement."
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Davis followed up the joke in the 2011 gameGarfield’s Scary Scavenger Hunt, where Garfield indeed discovers Lyman chained in a basement and - in the sequel - finds him beheaded under suspicious circumstances. A cheerier answer was presented by an episode of the 2014 cartoonThe Garfield Show, where it turns outLyman moved to the jungle to become an anti-poaching activist. Neither the games or show are consideredpart of Garfield’s official canon(which is mostly limited to the comics), they do offer satisfying (if not definitive) answers to where Lyman went.
Jim Davis was surprisingly prescient about how often he’d be doing interviews aboutGarfield, long before the franchise was generating hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue per year. The smart decision to clarify the strip’s ‘big’ (but ultimately irrelevant) mysteries means that over the years, Davis has been able to dodge repeatedly explaining the logic behindGarfield’s world again and again.
