Palladium-Item from Richmond, Indiana • Page 37

Irblladiinn-Htcm Richmond, Sunday, Nov. 7, 1 982 TT7V section me fm 11 KKllJipi3 mid HWBioir -Caf By Dale Parry People Staff Writer MUNCIE Poor Jim Davis. He's a Rodney Dangerfield in his own home; he don't get no respect. His 3-year-old son, Alex, likes to sleep with a stuffed Snoopy doll or, as a number two choice, a Miss Piggy. Orange, striped kitties rank a sad third.

And Davis' wife, Carolyn, tolerates the thousands of Davis fake felines but won't let a real mouser model near their house. She's allergic to them. This, for the man who draws Amer-' ica's favorite cat: Garfield. But no matter. With Garfield's rocketing success his cynical smile graces more than 1,200 newspaper comic pages and 1,500 products Davis easily affords a second castle, a studio in a converted home north of Muncie.

It Is here that, day after day, Garfield is born. (See related story). Originally, Davis had intended the syndicated strip to focus on the daily adventures of a young cartoonist, Jon Ar-buckle. But Jon's irrepressible cat, Garfield, quickly stole the spotlight. "Everytime I'd write a gag," Davis says, "Garfield had the punchline.

I couldn't write him out of it. He just bowled in and took it over. "He's a real nrima donna." -4 "Garfield Is a spokescat for what everyone feels. Jim Davis has found that kids like the physical gags like when Garfield konks Odie on the head. Teen-agers prefer Garfield's cynical attitude when Garfield says, "Big, fat hairy deal." The middle-age crowd enjoys the Garfield philosophies including "I'm not overweight.

I'm undertall." And senior citizens especially like Garfield's inability to escape at least a few of the habits and traits found in all cats finicky appetites, stuffy personalities, a penchant for claw-hanging on the screen door. "If what he says is funny," Davis figures, "it will hit someone." DAVIS OWN HUMOR roams a wide range. "While I like a good sophisticated gag now and then, I've always liked the Three Stooges." His favorite cartoons: BC, Beetle Bailey, Peanuts. He takes two to four hours to draw his daily strip; four to eight hours for the Sunday cartoon. When he's not drawing, he's supervising the multi-faceted world of Garfield products.

It makes for a long day and requires an uncompro-mised love for the color orange. But Davis says he doesn't dream about the cat, doesn't wake up in the middle of the night with Garfield zingers. "I very easily leave him at the drawing board," he says. Complete escape, however, is impossible. Garfield is everywhere in malls, on T-shirts, on greeting cards.

Strolling a shopping mall, Davis says he has seen children thrusting Garfield products toward their parents and pleading, "Pleeeease Mommy?" "Almost from an omniscient point of view, I get to see this happen," Davis says. "That shows that we're getting through. That's basically all we're trying to do any way make people feel better." Drawing Garfield is Davis' own tension vent. "It's more or less taking all your base frustrations and magnifying them, then putting them down on paper," Davis says. "Garfield is basically a spokescat for what everyone feels." All that Garfield stuff, day in and day out, is really OK, he confesses.

"It's when I don't see him any more. I'll get concerned." He has little cause for worry. The Garfield empire adds another paper just about every work day. That's good, Davis says, because he.wants to contin-. ue drawing not in a New York penthouse or a Los Angeles condo, but right where he is for another 25 or so years.

He has been across the country, "but I've never seen anything I like better than the Midwest," he says. "I've got friends and family here. This is also the place that formed my ideas and humor." Davis has what he wants, now. Most NOW, GARFIELD IS the unchallenged star of the strip. Fat, cynical and lazy, he is a philosopher's field day, a vagabond's dream, a Weight Watchers' nightmare.

"Diet is 'die' with a quips the lasagne-loving Garfield. "Show me a good mouser and I'll show you a cat with bad breath." And "If I were any zier, I'd slip into a coma." Were Garfield a person, Davis admits, he would be genuinely despicable. "But there is something not threatening about an animal. virtue of heins a cat. Garfield is neither black -v.

i A female." Garfield sheds at will, snatches food from humans' hands, shreds furniture and DUmmels the household pooch, Odie. "What if you had a roommate who Uiu muse MIlUa UI llllllga IU juu: iaru asks. "You'd take him to court. "But anything an animal does that is human-like is somehow endearing." i THE FIRST Garfield television show "Here Comes Garfield," which aired late last month offered Davis a chance to bring even more human characteristics to his catty creation. During one touching scene, where Garfield demonstrates his love for an impounded Odie, watery eyes were a popular viewer reaction.

Davis says the emotional response was intended and probably will be part of future Garfield adventures. "I never had time to (fully develop Garfield's character) before," he says. "In seven inches of a comic strip, you have precious little space." The move from newsprint to animation was an easy one for Garfield, Davis says. "In my mind, he always moves anyway. I more or less freeze-frame him for the strip." Those "freeze-frames" are the daily base of the fat cat's following.

"There's an appeal for just about everyone sometime during the week," Davis says. "I do change-up the humor." Through reactions in his mail, Davis of it, anyway. His wife still won't let him get a cat, although "We may have a dog someday. We're moving out into the country." And his young son still isn't ga-ga over Garfield. At lights-out, the stuffed cat gets booted to the bottom of the bed.

But at least the kid's stopped calling him "Snoopy." Plopped on the Hoor of Paws, Jim Davis many similar items are making life comfortable and friend. This stuffed version of Garfield and for the man from Muncie. Jim Davis works while Garfield smirks kered wondercat: "We're a little bit busy," he says. JUST A LITTLE bit. The first Garfield television show, "Here Comes Garfield," aired only four days earlier and the congratulations artistic and commercial are flowing in by phone and mail.

Paws is up to its hindquarters in busy. And with the added pressures of the daily comic strip plus the script for a second Garfield show, titled "Get Lost, Garfield" (Garfield can't find his way home) due to CBS later this week, Davis sits right in the middle of it all a 37-year-old Cheshire cat with a hard-earned taste of the cartoon world canary. He is an outwardly quiet man who can't seem to decide if he's ready to be all grown up yet. One minute, he's making mega-thousand dollar business deals and talking like a Harvard MBA. The next minute, he's tugging on his overalls, hitching his scuffed-up cowboy boots and telling you about the time he held a "Viking Night" in his driveway, eating spaghetti with his bare hands.

HE ALLOWS HIMSELF such eccentricities, along with a custom-built home, a new Cadillac and an occasional bottle of fine wine. He has earned them. Davis had his share of tough knocks before Garfield caught on. As a child, Davis suffered with asthma. The affliction kept him in bed many days and sparked his initial interest in art as a tool to fend off boredom.

Later, when he dropped out of Ball State University, he went to work for an advertising agency. His first extensive experience with cartooning came when he landed a job with Tom Ryan, creator of Tumbleweeds. Davis was a "background, border and bubble" GARFIELD (Please turn to Page EJ) By Dale Parry People SUff Writer MUNCIE Welcome to Jim Davis office. Stumble in, find a chair if you can, pardon the mess. Oh, and don't step on that bright orange cat.

He's everywhere in ceramic on the bookshelves, in plastic on the window ledge, stuffed in thebathroom, tacked to the wall. He lives here. The cat is Garfield, the comic strip character. Davis is his creator. The cartoonist is on the phone, handling some of the multi-million dollar business that flows through this office he calls Paws, Inc.

It's not really an office it's a house no, a madhouse just north of Muncie. People are running around like tomcats at a fish fry. The phones are ringing. Guys are walking in and out and firing questions about Garfield books and Garfield dolls and Garfield this and Garfield that. All the while, America's premier puss sits silently and smirks from his perch on the bookshelves, the window ledge, the walls and, yes, even the bathroom.

It's his job to smirk. It's what he does best. Davis does all the rest. He's off the phone now. An assistant one of 13 in the company tells him that the toy manufacturer absolutely must have his stuffed Garfield prototype back immediately.

Garfield is "hot" right now and everybody is scrambling to get fat off the cat. Davis scrutinizes the company's model and dictates changes to be made. "Tail too short. Back toes curl up too much. Ears fold back too far.

Smile should be more evil." Every image of Garfield must be perfect for Davis. He sketches a quick revision suggestion and hands it to the aide. Then he falls back into a desk chair and pulls a Winston 100 from the breast pocket of his denim bib overalls, unleashing as he does, an understatement of the type usually reserved for his wis- Copyright 13S2 by llm Davit.