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January
17, 2002 – Kansas City, MO
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Garfield
Named World's Most Widely Syndicated Comic Strip —
Garfield, created by Jim Davis and circulated by Universal Press Syndicate,
is the world’s most syndicated comic strip appearing in 2,570
journals worldwide, according to the Guinness World Records. After
conducting a thorough investigation, Guinness World Records recently
notified Universal Press of the distinction and presented a certificate
to Davis.
Garfield, the lasagna-loving and cynical fat cat, will celebrate its
25th year in syndication in 2003, having debuted on June 19, 1978,
in 41 U.S. newspapers. Some 263 million newspaper readers around the
globe now read the comic strip.
Davis, 56, created Garfield as a composite of all the cats he remembered
from his childhood, rolled into one feisty orange fur ball. Garfield
was named after Jim's cantankerous grandfather, James Garfield Davis.
A native of Fairmount, Indiana, Davis was raised on a small Black
Angus cow farm. Suffering from severe bouts of asthma as a child,
Davis was often confined to bed where drawing was a way to pass time.
Later, he attended Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana., where
he majored in art and business. He still maintains his Indiana roots,
conducting his international licensing and cartooning business, PAWS,
Inc., in Albany, which employs some 56 people. Davis recently launched
another newspaper comic strip, Mr. Potato Head, with collaborator
Brett Koth.
Garfield has racked up four Emmy Awards for Outstanding Animated Program
and an induction into the Licensing Hall of Fame (1998), but Davis’
most prized awards are from his peers in the National Cartoonists
Society: Best Humor Strip (1981 and 1985), the Elzie Segar Award (1990)
and the coveted Reuben Award (1990) for overall cartooning.
Universal Press Syndicate is the largest independent newspaper syndicate
in the world, distributing some of the most popular comics and features
in newspapers today and providing entertaining content to Web sites.
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