The Evolution of a comic strip and its characters – Part 1
If you’re a long time reader of any of the more popular comic strips you may know that those strips tend to evolve and change over time. For example if you look at the Garfield strip (by Jim Davis) when it began in 1978 you’ll see a much different look to it than what you’re most likely used to today.
Garfield in 1978
As you can see Garfield (and Jon) looked very different when the comic strip first began. I think most would agree the style here is pretty rough compared to the Garfield strips we’re all more recently used to and aware of. It’s during this time however that the personalities of each character were introduced. We learned that Jon is rather goofy, sometimes shy and a bit sensitive. We also learned that Garfield is one seriously lazy and rather sarcastic kitty who has a major love affair with lasagna.
Garfield in 1988
Garfield looks quite a bit more like what we’re used to now, doesn’t he? As you can see Jim Davis definitely did a lot of refining of his characters and as you’ll see with the next couple images, he has continued to do so.
Garfield in 1998
Changes are a bit more subtle now. You’ll notice Garfield’s feet have gotten a bit larger. With a belly like that they need to be, so he can actually see them! The shape of his head is also slightly different as well. You’d have to look pretty closely to see many changes in Jon at this point.
Garfield in 2007
Garfield’s feet are again a bit larger and you can’t help but notice that the colors have become a lot more washed out. They’re not nearly as bright as they were almost ten years ago. Now we see a bit more of a change in Jon’s appearance too. Look at his face in the comic compared to how it looked in 1998. Can you spot the small differences?
Speaking as someone who also creates a comic strip, I think it’s only natural that an artist constantly tweaks their strip, seeking to refine it gradually over time until ultimately reaching a point where it looks pretty darn polished, or at least closer to polished than when it began. Will we ever be totally happy with our creations? It’s hard to say.
While I don’t have a comic strip that is even anywhere in the same ballpark (or galaxy for that matter) as Garfield, I thought I’d put together a little series showing a character and strip from the beginning and their gradual refinement over time to their most current state.
My next post in this series will focus on why and how Gummy began and how he looked about a year ago. I hope you’ll consider joining me. I’ll try to make it interesting along the way as well ;)
I like this post. I love Garfield too, I think I have some cutted comic strips translated to spanish of 1979 saved on a box.
I remember a cartoon of some Garfield`s birthday, in the eighties, it`s about the “9 lives of the cat” so the cartoon shows 9 mini stories about grafield made by 9 cartoon artists. I don`t remember the title of that cartoon movie.
How COOL is that! Thanks for sharing that, I’ve noticed the changes in Garfield (well, not the feet, but the first drawing of Garfield) but not Jon. Funny how Jon has the same shirt throughout the years in the comics you chose to show though haha.
Can’t wait to see how Gummy came to be!
Take care and keep up the great work :)
@Hernan: That would be very cool to see. Was it 9 stories created by nine other well known cartoonists or something?
@Maria: Glad you liked the start for far :) I think you’ll actually notice with most comic strips that not much changes over the years as far as clothing and such. It makes ya wonder if they ever bathe..hehe.
My favorite is Garfield and Jon in 1988, I had all of the Garfield comic strip books back then. I can’t wait to see your upcoming Gummy post, that sounds interesting!
I’m a big fan of the 80s Garfield as well. I also had all of the books. I had a huge box full of them. Somewhere along the line though I gave them away and I can’t even remember who I gave them to. I wish I’d never done that :/
Great post, Mike! It is really interesting to compare the 1978 strip to the 2007 one! I look forward to the next post in this series! :)
I would’ve never noticed the ever-enlarging Garfield feet! The old strip reminds me of being little. I used to have a book of Garfield strips. :D
@Tish: Thank you :) I’ll probably do the next post in a day or two =)
@Angela: Haha…he has quite the ginormous feet now :D What did you end up doing with your books? I really wish I still had mine.
That is amazing! I love that Garfield’s feet have grown so much over the years. I wonder what that says about the people who read Garfield – have we been increasingly valuing large feet? Is that what the people want?
I used to love reading the Garfield books. My parents had a bunch of them and I read them all.
But my all time favourite comic is Archie comics. I used to make fashion magazines when I was 10-13 and they would feature Betty and Veronica inspired models. I started out by tracing them and then finally could draw them on my own.
Great post Mike. I look forward to seeing the “first Gummy”.
Thank you Danielle! It’s good to hear from ya again :)
I used to read a bit of the Archie comics as well. My favorites were always Garfield, Calvin and Hobbes and Marmaduke though :)
Do you still have any of the fashion magazines you used to make?
Don’t ya just love snowballs? +)
Mike, are those examples (I love the selection, btw) originals, or you think they have been edited in some new release process? I’m thinking the way he middle picture has no frame is so consistent, did he really do that in 78 already?
Yep those are all actually scans of the originals to my knowledge. They came from a website that has archives of every single Garfield strip dating all the way back to the beginning. I can’t imagine how long that must have taken. There’s thousands of them ;P
As far back as I can remember reading Garfield (since the very early 80s), the middle frame has always been like that.
Great, thanks.
BTW, this post is something you could do more often, as far as I’m concerned. I like this kind of stuff and it is nice to read about it, when written by a guy who Knows a Little about it ;)
I may do more stuff like this in the future beyond this series. We shall see. I just pretty much go where my inspiration takes me :P
Great post, can’t wait to see your upcoming ones on Gummy! AND though I like the progression of Jon, I think Garfield’s feed are just too damn big!!! Ha ha ha!
I love Garfield, but I never noticed how large his feet were getting. They almost look TOO big!
@Bush: If he were a real cat he’d probably be tripping over the things :lol:
@Susan: They’ve definitely gotten quite enormous over the years…lol. I’d love to be able to pick Jim Davis’ brain and find out why he’s decided to continue making them larger :)
Mike, I enjoyed reading this post. I like Garfield’s feet now..well actually I like all of the later illustrations. It is interesting that Jon doesn’t change.
I think you are a fantastic illustrator and I don’t know why I haven’t visited more often, although, I believe that now I will be back for more.
Great work here.
Ann
I wish I could draw! :)
Hi Ann :) I’m glad you enjoyed the post! Thank for your compliments as well :D
I’m a believer that everyone can draw. It just takes lot of practice =)
Interesting post, Mike. I used to be a super comic strip geek (in addition to comic books) and devoured all those small Garfield softcover books in the ’80s. Same with the Peanuts ones. And actually, take a look at the very early Peanuts comic strips to see a radical difference from the characters everyone knows today.
And if you evolve the discussion to animation, just look at Mickey Mouse (Steamboat Willie compared to today’s much plumpier version).
Yeh, exactly Andrew :) I just used Garfield as an example since I’m such a huge fan of the strip and Jim Davis, but indeed a lot of strips have really evolved over the years =)
“@Susan: They’ve definitely gotten quite enormous over the years…lol. I’d love to be able to pick Jim Davis’ brain and find out why he’s decided to continue making them larger :)”
Mike – I think they’ve gotten larger so that they’re better able to support Garfield’s ever-growing belly. hehehe…
Hehe…I’m glad my feet don’t grow in proportion to my belly. They’re big enough as it is :P
You know what they say about men with big feet…
They have big shoes. :)
Wow! What an interesting post. I had never seen “vintage” Garfield. I am reminded of how The Simpsons looked in the beginning vs. how they look now. Thanks for a great read!
@Tish: My shoes are like little boats…hehe.
@Bob: Glad you enjoyed the article :) You’re right the Simpsons were very different 20 or so years ago as well. I can still remember the little short “skits” of them on the Tracy Ullman show. They were just as funny as ever, but definitely looked pretty darn rough compared to today :)
Mike,
An interesting post, I’m a big fan of comic books/strips. One reason Garfield has probably evolved as much as he has over the years is that the creator of the strip does very little of the actual art nowdays. He turned over the artwork of the strip to assistants years ago, so they probably turned it into a little more of their style. It’s interesting to see how much he’s changed with the strips you show though, it almost looks like a different strip at the start, doesn’t it?
Yep, he’s got a team of 20 or so Indiana handling a lot of things for him now. It must be nice :) It’s still interesting to look at how much it evolved over the years though. It certainly did look like a different strip in the beginning…lol.
I can’t explain it, but an awful lot of comic strips seem to evolve in out-of-control fashion after they’ve been around a while. It’s almost like Jim Davis is powerless to stop Garfield’s feet from getting bigger and bigger. When it happens, it’s usually a sign that the strip has jumped the shark, and I can’t help wondering if the artist is simply unable to see what’s happening, or if he sees it but is unable to stop it.
Other examples would include Opus’ nose in Bloom County/Outland/Opus, the goggle-eyes of the For Better Or For Worse characters, the bulbous heads of the alligators in Pearls Before Swine and Jason Fox’s bizarrely elongated head in FoxTrot.
And gosh, how is it possible that Garry Trudeau doesn’t realize that the monotonous repetition of imagery from one panel to the other was absolutely vital to the dry, ironic tone of Doonesbury? When he started making a point of varying each panel in the 80’s, he ruined the strip.
Sometimes I have to go back to older collections of these strips, just to remind myself of how visually appealing they used to be before their artists lost control over their characters’ evolution.