20 Garfield T-Shirts: The Original Grumpy Cat

There’s nothing like a relaxing Sunday morning in which you have the time to sip your coffee while reading the Sunday funnies. Sadly, in some locations, the funny pages seem to have gotten smaller (or maybe we’ve gotten larger), but there are still a few chuckles to be had. There’s lots of wacky strips like Pearls Before Swine; strips for the geeky like Foxtrot and Dilbert; and then there’s plenty of classics like Blondie and Drabble. But of all the cool cats who grace the funny pages, the coolest (and crankiest) is Garfield. (Sorry Heathcliff.)

For almost 40 years now, Jim Davis’ feline creation has been giving us a chuckle or a smile or an out loud laugh on a daily basis. The strip runs in thousands of newspapers all over the world, and actually holds the Guinness Book of World Record for being the most widely syndicated. Since practically day one, his strips have been collected into books and published. They’re well into 60 volumes now. (I still think that Garfield Tip the Scales: His Eighth Book is his best.)

Garfield may not be as common as Snoopy and his friends when it comes to merchandising, but the cat has a pretty powerful merchandising empire. Back in the 80s, every other car had a Garfield suction cupped to their back windows.

And though that trend faded almost as quickly as the sun bleached the yellow out of the stuffed replica, Garfield remained present outside of the funny pages. He’s had television specials and animated series. As well as two live action films with Billy Murray as the voice of this original grumpy cat. And I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before there’s a new project popping up on one of today’s many viewing formats.

But when it comes down to the basics, Garfield is a funny humanized feline. Even then least frequent reader of his strip is familiar with his hatred of Mondays and his love of lasagna. Though some may dismiss the strip as too cutesy and family oriented, I remind you that he’s abusive to both his owner and his dog brother, the dim-witted Odie. And he’s very nasty to his adorable friend Nermal. This behavior would be condoned if it were coming form a human, but a cartoon cat can smack around people and insult the things we don’t like. Perhaps a daily catharsis.

But under that tough exterior, there lays a kitten who wants nothing more than to cuddle with his Teddy bear, Pookie. And when nobody’s looking, Garfield displays some tenderness to those he seems to dislike the most. It’s that layered personality that gives this hand drawn character personality.

Though I’m still wondering what happened to Odie’s original owner and Jon’s former roommate, Lyman, who mysteriously disappeared from the comics decades ago. Something to ponder as you enjoy these cool and classic Garfield shirts.