* * * * *
                                        
                  Garfield a commercial, not artistic, success
                                        
> In his 1982 interview with Shapiro, Davis admitted to spending only 13 or
> 14 hours a week writing and drawing the strip, compared to 60 hours a week
> doing promotion and licensing.
> 
> Garfield's origins were so mercantile that it's fair to say he never sold
> out-he never had any integrity to put on the auction block to begin with.
> But today Davis spends even less time on the strip than he used to- between
> three days and a week each month. During that time, he collaborates with
> another cartoonist to generate ideas and rough sketches, then hands them
> over to Paws employees to be illustrated.
> 

Via the Ferrett [1], “Garfield—Why we hate the Mouse but not the cartoon
copycat. By Chris Suellentrop [2]”

This certainly explains Bill Watterson's comment [3] about Garfield being
“consistent.” It also puts a different spin on my meeting Jim Davis [4],
creator of Garfield.

[1] http://www.livejournal.com/users/theferrett/312504.html
[2] http://slate.msn.com/id/2102299
[3] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2001/08/16.1
[4] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2000/04/20.2

Email Sean Conner at sean@conman.org

.