Jon (found prototype "Garfield" comic strip; 1976-1978)
Garfield as he appears in this comic strip.
Status: Found
Date found: 05 Jun 2020
Found by: Quinton Reviews
By now, almost everyone knows about Jim Davis's famous comic strip cat, Garfield. However, what is much lesser known is the fact that, before the Garfield comics were syndicated into several mainstream newspapers, Jim Davis had published various "prototype" Garfield comics weekly in the Pendleton, Indiana newspaper, The Pendleton Times. These comics were interestingly titled Jon.
About
Jon centers around the titular character Jon, along with his plain, stripe-less cat, Garfield. Lyman, the character who eventually infamously disappeared with no explanation in Garfield, also had an appearance here, along with his dog, Spot. Spot is the original version of Odie in this comic strip. It's unknown why his name was changed, but a likely reason is that the name "Spot" is a very stereotypical name for a dog, which was made fun of in one of the comics. This name change also resulted in Davis having to alter the punchline of one of the comics so that it would still work when remade in Garfield. Most comics in this series would eventually get slightly altered and re-released as mainstream Garfield comics when they came out. However, there were a few unique comics which never got adapted into Garfield.
Name Change
After September 1st, 1977, the strip's name was changed to Garfield, named after the cat in the comic strip. This was suggested by Tom K. Ryan, creator of the comic strip Tumbleweeds, pointing out that Garfield had all the good lines, and was the main focus of certain strips.
Mainstream Syndication
On March 2nd, 1978, it was revealed to Pendleton Times readers that the newly-named Garfield would be getting syndicated into more mainstream newspapers. 2 final prototype strips were shown as a farewell, showing designs for Garfield and Jon much closer to how they looked in the first few mainstream Garfield strips.
Resurfacing
For some reason, this short-lived comic strip had gone almost completely undocumented for 40 years until July 28th, 2019, when Youtuber Quinton Reviews had someone in Pendleton make scans of various then-lost Gnorm Gnat comic strips (Jim Davis's other Pendleton Times comic). However, to his surprise, he later got another email with the subject "Here is Jon", revealing to him, and the Garfield fandom, 38 of these comics.
Availability
From January 8th, 1976, to March 2nd, 1978, 112 Jon comic strips were produced. However, only 38 had been preserved on the internet from their initial discovery to their complete release via a Google Drive document uploaded by Quinton Reviews.[1] The first found strips were discovered in a public library in Pendleton, along with several of the Gnorm Gnat comic strips.
In January of 2020, Quinton travelled to Pendleton and scanned every Jon and Gnorm Gnat comic he could find,[2] before later making them all available for public consumption on June 5th, 2020 alongside an accompanying documentary video about the process.
Gallery
Images
Digital scan of the very first Jon strip.
Comparison between a Jon strip and a mainstream Garfield strip, where the punchline was changed to reflect Odie's name change.
Digital scan of the first strip with the name changed to Garfield.
The last 2 known prototype Garfield strips.
Colorization work by LMW user Goosen12 on the first Jon comic strip.
Videos
See Also
- Garfield "Bound For Home" (lost build of cancelled Nintendo DS game based on comic strip; existence unconfirmed; 2005)
- Garfield: The Lost Levels (lost Sega Channel exclusive levels of Sega Genesis game based on comic strip; mid-1990s)
- Garfield and Friends (found original "U.S. Acres" title cards of CBS animated series based on comic strip; 1988-1994)
- Garfield and Friends "Screaming With Binky" (partially lost segments from animated series; 1988-1990)
- The Garfield Show "Rodent Rebellion" (found animated television special; 2016)
- Garfield's Judgment Day (partially found production material from cancelled animated special based on comic strip; late 1980s-early 1990s)
- Garfield's World Ego Tour (lost live-action special based on comic strip; 2003)
- Gnorm Gnat (found Jim Davis comic strip; 1973-1975)
- Lasagna Cat (partially found unreleased/prototype episodes of "Garfield" parody web series; 2008-2017)
- The Garfield Shorts (partially found animated television shorts; 2009-2012)