Characters and story
The strip revolves around a yellow bull terrier named Grimm (aka Grimmy), owned by an anthropomorphic goose named Mother Goose, along with a dimwitted Boston terrier named Ralph and a cat named Attila. The strip is noted for its references to popular culture or recent news that are often spoofed and referenced for a certain period of time, depending on the length of the hype devoted to a certain news story or topic, e.g. Grimm's creation of a website known as "GrimmyLeaks", which was devoted to publishing rumors relating to fellow comic strip characters, in reference to the controversy surrounding the scandalous website WikiLeaks. The comic strip also makes multiple references to iconic fictional characters including Mr. Potato Head, Superman, Batman, and more, along with popular products including Amazon Kindles.
The strip also often consists of stand-alone one-panel comics that do not relate to the continuing story or characters.
The comic strip is named after the nursery rhyme collection Mother Goose and the fairytale collection Brothers Grimm.
A comic strip is a sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st century, these have been published in newspapers and magazines, with daily horizontal strips printed in black-and-white in newspapers, while Sunday papers offered longer sequences in special color comics sections. With the advent of the internet, online comic strips began to appear as webcomics.
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.
James Robert Davis is an American cartoonist, screenwriter, and producer. He is best known as the creator of the comic strips Garfield and U.S. Acres. Published since 1978, Garfield is one of the world's most widely syndicated comic strips. Davis's other comics work includes Tumbleweeds, Gnorm Gnat, and Mr. Potato Head.
Michael Bartley Peters, better known as Mike Peters, is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and the creator of the comic strip Mother Goose and Grimm.
Pickles is a daily and Sunday comic strip by Brian Crane focusing on a retired couple in their seventies, Earl and Opal Pickles. Pickles has been published since April 2, 1990.
Dagwood Bumstead is a main character in cartoonist Chic Young's long-running comic strip Blondie. He debuted in the first strip on September 8, 1930.
The comic strip switcheroo was conducted on April 1, 1997, in which several cartoonists, without the foreknowledge of their editors, worked on the other's comic strip for that date, in commemoration of April Fools' Day.
Gnorm Gnat is an American gag-a-day comic strip by Jim Davis based on fictional insects, with the primary focus on a gnat named Gnorm. The strip appeared in The Pendleton Times in Pendleton, Indiana, from 1973 to 1975, but failure to take the character to mainstream success led Davis to instead create the comic strip Garfield. Mike Peters, the cartoonist for Mother Goose and Grimm, has said that Gnorm Gnat is now a part of "cartoon folklore" as a failure that paved the way for major success.
Mother Goose and Grimm, also known as Grimmy for the second season, is an American animated television series that premiered September 14, 1991, on CBS. The show is an adaptation of Mike Peters's comic strip of the same name. The Saturday morning cartoon was produced by Bob Curtis, and written by Mark Evanier.
Jeff Parker has been an editorial cartoonist for Florida Today, which serves Florida's Space Coast, since 1992. He also assists Pulitzer Prize–winning cartoonist Mike Peters (cartoonist) with his comic strip, Mother Goose & Grimm and worked with Denis Lebrun on the daily Blondie comic strip from 1996 until 2005. With New Orleans Times-Picayune editorial cartoonist Steve Kelley, Parker produces the strip Dustin, centered on an unemployed 23-year-old living with his parents. Dustin was launched in papers nationwide in early 2010. Parker's work generally mocks conservatism.
GoComics is a website launched in 2005 by the digital entertainment provider Uclick. It was originally created as a distribution portal for comic strips on mobile phones, but in 2006, the site was redesigned and expanded to include online strips and cartoons. GoComics publishes editorial cartoons, mobile content, and daily comics. It is currently owned by Andrews McMeel Universal.
Garfield Gets Real is a 2007 American direct-to-video animated comedy film based on the comic strip Garfield. It was produced by Paws, Inc. in cooperation with Davis Entertainment, and The Animation Picture Company and distributed by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. It was written by Garfield's creator Jim Davis, who started working on the script in the autumn of 1996. This was the first fully animated Garfield production since the 1991 television special Garfield Gets a Life, and the season finale of Garfield and Friends. The DVD was shipped to stores on August 9, 2007. Gregg Berger, an actor from the original series, reprises his role of Odie, but Garfield was voiced by veteran voice actor Frank Welker, since the original actor Lorenzo Music died six years earlier in 2001 and Jon is voiced by Wally Wingert, as Thom Huge retired that same year. The film received unfavorable reviews.
Happy Birthday, Garfield is an hour-long television special dedicated to the tenth anniversary of the Garfield comic strip, hosted by its creator Jim Davis. It uses both live-action and animation.
Chad Carpenter is an American cartoonist, best known for his comic panel Tundra. Carpenter launched the strip in the Anchorage Daily News in his home state of Alaska in 1991. Since then, he has self-syndicated it to over 600 newspapers, an unusually high amount for strips in self-syndication.
The Garfield Show is a CGI animated television series produced by Dargaud Media and Paws, Inc. It is based on the American Garfield comic strip created by Jim Davis. The animated series focuses on a new series of adventures for the characters of Garfield, Odie, and their owner Jon Arbuckle, alongside staple characters from the strip and a number of unique additions for the program. Both Davis and producer Mark Evanier, who previously wrote episodes for the 1988 original cartoon animated series Garfield and Friends, co-wrote stories for the program, with the cast including Frank Welker, Wally Wingert, Julie Payne, Jason Marsden and Gregg Berger. Welker and Berger had previously voiced various characters in Garfield and Friends.
Cartoonists Remember 9/11 is a series of comic strips run on the tenth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. It included cartoonists from King Features Syndicate, Creators Syndicate, Tribune Media Services, Universal Press Syndicate, and Washington Post Writers Group.
Jonathan Q. Arbuckle is a fictional character from the Garfield comic strip by Jim Davis. He also appears in the animated television series Garfield and Friends and The Garfield Show, two live-action/CGI feature films, and three fully CGI films.
ArcaMax Publishing is a privately-owned American web/email syndication news publisher that provides editorial content, columns & features, comic strips, and editorial cartoons via email. ArcaMax also produces co-branded newsletters with corporate clients.
