It doesn’t really surprise me, but I’m not sure it changes how I feel about it.
My family were huge Garfield fans growing up and had a bunch of the books (one in German). The side characters were fun Odie, Lyman, the overly adorable kitten (Nermal), some relatives that came from a farm or something.
The “worst” thing was at some point it did seem like Davis was cranking them out for the newspaper without some of the care (though it might be I overdosed and became kind of sick of them). The other characters disappeared or became infrequent.
Garfield always struck me as having exhausted all available novelty almost immediately. Simpsons at least was able to do 5-10 seasons (depending on your taste), but there is only so much one can do with 3 panels and a handful of characters eh?
I think he kept his slot more out of nostalgia and risk adversion from the papers than anything else.
My family were huge Garfield fans growing up and had a bunch of the books (one in German). The side characters were fun Odie, Lyman, the overly adorable kitten (Nermal), some relatives that came from a farm or something.
The “worst” thing was at some point it did seem like Davis was cranking them out for the newspaper without some of the care (though it might be I overdosed and became kind of sick of them). The other characters disappeared or became infrequent.
I don’t begrudge him though.