when was the first garfield comic strip printed
1978
title: Garfield text: Garfield Garfield is a comic created by Jim Davis. Published since 1978, it chronicles the life of the title character, Garfield, the cat; Jon Arbuckle, the human; and Odie, the dog. As of 2013, it was syndicated in roughly 2,580 newspapers and journals, and held the Guinness World Record for being the world's most widely syndicated comic strip. Though this is rarely mentioned in print, "Garfield" is set in Muncie, Indiana, the home of Jim Davis, according to the television special "Happy Birthday, Garfield". Common themes in the strip include Garfield's laziness, obsessive eating, coffee, and disdain of Mondays and title: Garfield text: was appearing in more than 1,000 newspapers. By 2002, "Garfield" became the world's most syndicated strip, appearing in 2,570 newspapers with 263 million readers worldwide; by 2004, "Garfield" appeared in nearly 2,600 newspapers and sold from $750 million to $1 billion worth of merchandise in 111 countries. In 1994, Davis's company, Paws, Inc., purchased all rights to the strips from 1978 to 1993 from United Feature. The strip is currently distributed by Universal Press Syndicate, while rights for the strip remain with Paws. While retaining creative control and being the only signer, Davis now only writes and usually does the title: Garfield text: newspapers on June 19 of that year (however, after a test run, the "Chicago Sun-Times" dropped it, only to reinstate it after readers' complaints). "Garfield"'s first Sunday page ran on June 25, 1978, being featured as a third-pager until March 22, 1981. A half-page debuted the following Sunday, March 29, with the strips for March 14 and 21, 1982, having a unique nine-panel format, but UFS curtailed further use of it (it did, however, allow Davis to use the format for his "U.S. Acres" strip). The strip underwent stylistic changes, evolving from the style of the 1978–83 strips, to a title: Garfield text: rough sketches. Since the late 1990s most of the work has been done by long-time assistants Brett Koth and Gary Barker. Inking and coloring work is done by other artists, while Davis spends most of the time supervising production and merchandising the characters. "Garfield" was originally created by Davis with the intention to come up with a "good, marketable character". Now the world's most syndicated comic strip, "Garfield" has spawned a "profusion" of merchandise including clothing, toys, games, books, Caribbean cruises, credit cards, dolls, DVDs of the movies or the TV series, and related media. Garfield.com is the strip's official title: Garfield text: more cartoonish look from 1984 onward. This change has mainly affected Garfield's design, which underwent a "Darwinian evolution" in which he began walking on his hind legs, "slimmed down", and "stopped looking ... through squinty little eyes" His evolution, according to Davis, was to make it easier to "push Odie off the table" or "reach for a piece of pie." "Garfield" quickly became a commercial success. In 1981, less than three years after its release, the strip appeared in 850 newspapers and accumulated over $15 million in merchandise. To manage the merchandise, Davis founded Paws, Inc. In 1982 the strip