Gnorm Gnat (found Jim Davis comic strip; 1973-1975)

From The Lost Media Wiki
Revision as of 06:04, 15 June 2019 by Kobochat (talk | contribs)
Jump to: navigation, search
Gnorm.jpg

The title character, drawn by Jim Davis.

Status: Partially Found

Jim Davis is known for creating the very famous comic strip Garfield that started in 1978, which has become a massive media franchise on its own, adapted into animated series, video games, TV specials and feature-length movies.

What is lesser known is that, before Garfield, Jim Davis created another comic strip called Gnorm Gnat, featuring anthropomorphic insects, which ran from 1972 to 1977.

Premise

The main character was the titular Gnorm Gnart, a straight man with "Walter Mitty" tendencies.

Other characters include a depressed fly, Freddy, who only has a week to live, and an unspecified species "free spirit, just a tad insane" bug called Lyman (the Garfield comic strip would also have a major character called Lyman, Odie's original owner, who would infamously disappear without a reason).

Cancellation

The comic strip was only published weekly in The Pendleton Times, a newspaper from the town of Pendleton in the State of Indiana. Davis tried to have it published in more mainstream publications, but it kept being rejected. Although his art and writing were praised, the main criticism he received was that the characters were considered "unrelatable" and "unfunny" due to being insects.

Davis then decided to end the strip, having the titular protagonist die by being stepped on by the foot of a human.

He would then decide to have his new comic strip be about a more relatable animal: a cat, Garfield. The rest is history.

Availability

Despite being the predecessor to one of the most popular comic strips of all time, almost no strips of the original comic have resurfaced publically, and it seems Davis and his editors have no interest into collecting and reprinting them.

Only a few comic strips have been shown in Garfield celebration books. The rest, including the infamous last strip, remains in the dark.[1][2][3]

According to an author of fan-produced parody website Square Root of Minus Garfield, some scans of Gnorm Gnat still exist at the "local library" in Pendleton, Indiana, on "microfiche films". He was able to look at some unknown strips, notably one (from 1975) where the script was reused for a 1982 Garfield strip.[4]

Image Gallery

External Link

References