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Summary
Jim Davis transformed Galactus into a Garfield-like character in a comedic twist.
The collaboration between Ryan North and Davis resulted in hilariously fun comic strips
Knowledge Waits is a feature where I just share some bit of comic book history that interests me. Today, I look at how Jim Davis played with the Marvel Universe by turning Galactus into…Garfield?!
Last year, Patrick McDonnell, the creator of the acclaimed, long-running comic strip, Mutts, made his Marvel Comics debut with a graphic novel called The Super Hero’s Journey. Here’s what I wrote about it for CBR’s Top 100 Comics of 2023 (it was #68)…
Patrick McDonnell is best known for his iconic comic strip,
Mutts
, but, like many people of his age who were kids in the 1960s, he grew up as a Marvel Zombie, and in this graphic novel, he pays tribute to the importance of the Marvel Age on his life with a splendid examination of what drives the appeal of superheroes, and Marvel superheroes in particular, as he tells a very personal story of the impact Marvel had on him growing up, but in doing so, he also tells a much greater story of how much comic books can help inspire pretty much anybody, and the importance of looking beyond the negativity that the world can sometimes try to force upon us.
It was definitely a cool novelty seeing a major comic strip creator like McDonnell turn his attention to superhero comics, but what’s interesting is that almost seven years ago, Garfield creator Jim Davis ALSO ventured into the Marvel Universe, only in his case, it was to produce a series of comics by…Galactus?!? And in those comic strips, Galactus is essentially…Garfield?! How does this make any sense?!
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How did Jim Davis come to draw a Galactus series of comic strips?
Years ago, Dan Slott came upon the hook that made Squirrel Girl truly shine as a character. You see, she had been introduced many years earlier in a one-off comic book story where she teamed up with Iron Man to fight Doctor Doom. The comic book, written by Will Murray, and drawn by comic book icon, Steve Ditko, was meant to be used as an inventory issue for either Iron Man or West Coast Avengers. An inventory comic book was a story that could be placed into a comic book series if the main story was ever delayed. They really don’t do inventory stories as much nowadays, as comics tend to have a bit less strict schedule than the past. In any event, for a one-off story, Squirel Girl defeating Doctor Doom seemed to irritate some Marvel writers, who felt that it was unrealistic for this brand-new teen hero to defeat Doctor Doom in her first appearance, especially when her powers were basically just squirrel-based. Slott, though, leaned into that, by having Squirrel Girl just repeatedly defeat bigger and bigger Marvel villains, even Thanos!
That over-the-top approach was used brilliantly by Ryan North and Erika Henderson (with colorist Rico Renzi) on The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, really leaning into how absurd Squirrel Girl’s adventures were in the Marvel Universe. She even took on Galactus in a story!
That led to Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #26, which was a “Zine” edition of the series, where Squirrel Girl turned to the heroes and villains of the Marvel Universe, and asked them to contribute comics to her self-made magazine (or ‘zine), with sales of the magazine helping to pay for a local library that had been destroyed in a superhero battle…
Chip Zdarsky and Erika Henderson, for instance, did the Howard the Duck strip (which was too inappropriate to be used in the comic in full)…
The most surprising thing was that Ryan North managed to recruit Jim Davis to join in on the fun!
Davis explained to Entertainment Weekly back when the issue came out, “Ryan North sent me an email last winter about this idea to do a special Squirrel Girl issue drawn by the cartoon characters themselves, with different artists for each style. He explained Galactus seemed like a logical one for me, because of Garfield — having the appetite of the planets, and being one of the biggest and oldest of the Marvel characters. Garfield will be 40 next year, and is himself reaching iconic status.”
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North wrote the story, and Davis drew it (with the help of his assistants, Gary Barker and Dan Davis). Davis explained the creative process on the strips:
“Ryan explained to me, he wanted it to be done in our style. He likened and wrote Galactus as Garfield and Norin Radd as Jon. That determined what they were going to look like. When you look at the Silver Surfer, he’s 75 percent of the way there anyway with Jon, all we had to do is give him the big eyes. That was a natural. John kind of hangs around Garfield anyway, he’s the straight man to Garfield’s gags and has to get him food. He’s like Garfield’s herald. Galactus was tougher. We were throwing stuff back and forth, and the initial sketches just weren’t working for Galactus. I said okay, we gotta make him fat. The guy eats planets, for god’s sake! Once we do that, it’s a little less Galactus but certainly a lot more Garfield. It looked more natural. Obviously, Galactus has put on a few mega-tons for this strip.”
Here are the two pages’ worth of strips, which opens with an homage to the very first Garfield strip (Silver Surfer and Galactus’ dialogue are exactly what Jon and Garfield say in that first strip back in 1978)…
Very funny stuff!
If anyone else has an interesting piece of comic book history that they’d like to see me write about, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!
“}]] See how Garfield creator once was given the chance to play in the Marvel Universe, where he turned Galactus into…a cosmic Garfield?! Read More