I'm honestly really confused. Like, every single strip I've seen is just so incredibly unfunny. But apparently it is or at least was incredibly popular?? How exactly did it become so popular? Are there actually people who are like "ah Garfield, I love Garfield so much, I can't wait for the next Garfield to drop" or was it like something people saw and shrugged and said "alright" and moved on?
I actually searched in Google to find people posting actually funny Garfield strips, and at least in most of the ones people were bringing up you could see where the joke was supposed to be, or there was an actual attempt at a joke. In most of them. When the "cream of the crop" only "mostly" passes as a joke then there's a problem.
Of all the "best" ones, there was a total of 4 which... Weren't funny exactly but at least they actually had a punchline that was kinda cute I guess. This was the best I managed to find: http://images.ucomics.com/comics/ga/1988/ga881207.gif
Yeah, that. That's the most amazing I could find. Both the movies were like 100 times better than anything in the strips, and that says a lot. I seriously can't understand it and because Garfield was never popular here, I don't personally know anyone who read that shit, and I can't help but feel like it's all a big joke or something lol
The jokes were simple enough for everyone to understand, and the character was ubiquitous because Jim Davis understood how to market. I have heard that he is in the marketing hall of fame, but not the cartoonist's hall of fame. He even had the foresight to ease back on exposure for Garfield, because he was able to anticipate that everyone would get sick of the character if it was seen in too many places at once.
He convinced enough people, such as myself, that the strip was clever, that we kept going through the motions for years.
Idk if that's a thing but it definitely sounds like it makes sense.