Garfield is an American comic strip created by Jim Davis. Originally published locally as Jon in 1976, then in nationwide syndication from 1978 as Garfield, it chronicles the life of the title character Garfield the cat, his human owner Jon Arbuckle, 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 its setting is rarely mentioned in print, Garfield takes place in Jim Davis's hometown of Muncie, Indiana, according to the television special Happy Birthday, Garfield. Common themes in the strip include Garfield's laziness, obsessive eating, love of coffee and lasagna, disdain of Mondays, and diets. Garfield is also shown to manipulate people to get whatever he wants. The strip's focus is mostly on the interactions among Garfield, Jon, and Odie, but other recurring characters appear as well.
