Why does Jim Davis get so much hate?

[castletonsnob]

Why do people shit on Jim Davis for merchandising Garfield so heavily? Why does nobody criticize Scott Adams for licensing Dilbert? I mean, Dilbert had his own FOOD in the late 90s with Dilberito.

[Feyrhausen]

Dec 25, 2023 15:42:10 GMT -5 castletonsnob said:

Why do people shit on Jim Davis for merchandising Garfield so heavily? Why does nobody criticize Scott Adams for licensing Dilbert? I mean, Dilbert had his own FOOD in the late 90s with Dilberito.

People have a lot more to criticize Scott Adams for these days.

[CMWaters]

Well, Scott Adams has his own series of issues people have harped on him for. The thread about him is somewhere on the board if the search feature is working properly.

As for Davis, I don't think it's as much the marketing as the amount of it not coinciding with quality of the source, at least from my perspective.

[Burst]

I feel like a lot is just because he's easily been the most shameless about it. That and you figure Garfield has been around for so long now that we're literally 20 years at a minimum from the strip's peak (I'd say 1985-1995 myself) and even longer past Garfield & Friends, so you have generations now that have never actually seen when Garfield was actually arguably worthy of the merchandising empire, if that made any sense.

[castletonsnob]

Dec 25, 2023 15:46:22 GMT -5 Burst said:

I feel like a lot is just because he's easily been the most shameless about it. That and you figure Garfield has been around for so long now that we're literally 20 years at a minimum from the strip's peak (I'd say 1985-1995 myself) and even longer past Garfield & Friends, so you have generations now that have never actually seen when Garfield was actually arguably worthy of the merchandising empire, if that made any sense.

No, I get it.

Davis, at least, has always been upfront about making Garfield to make money.

[jason1980s]

I used to love getting Garfield Ravioli from the grocery store. They were a little more filling than the kid's kitchen and better than Boyardee (sauce is too sweet).

[Cyno]

Davis seems like he's generally pretty nice to people and he's a fan of stuff like Garfield Without Garfield. He's just shameless about Garfield being for the money more than the art, which hey, fair enough.

[Burst]

In a sense I'd say it's not that different than when folks have ragged on the likes of Kevin Nash and Goldberg for saying broadly similar things about getting into wrestling for the money and not for the sake of wrestling.

[ace]

If he created like…some work of art or wrote a meaningful, influential masterwork I’d get it. He created a cat that likes lasagna. Make every penny you can. It was never about the credibility of the work.

[The Summer of Muskrat XVII]

Other then Bill Waterson, I've never really seen anyone shit on Jim Davis for being a merchandising whore but I've seen tonnes of people dunk on him for his incredibly lazy and uninspired writing the past 30 years

[chrom]

Dec 25, 2023 16:07:38 GMT -5 ace said:

If he created like…some work of art or wrote a meaningful, influential masterwork I’d get it. He created a cat that likes lasagna. Make every penny you can. It was never about the credibility of the work.

Heck, look at Peanuts, even as early as the 60s there was stuff and merchandise with Snoopy and Charlie Brown's face on it.

[Spider2024]

Dec 25, 2023 15:58:11 GMT -5 Burst said:

In a sense I'd say it's not that different than when folks have ragged on the likes of Kevin Nash and Goldberg for saying broadly similar things about getting into wrestling for the money and not for the sake of wrestling.

Dec 25, 2023 16:07:38 GMT -5 ace said:

If he created like…some work of art or wrote a meaningful, influential masterwork I’d get it. He created a cat that likes lasagna. Make every penny you can. It was never about the credibility of the work.

These, basically. Even a job that someone likes is still a job. Even a job that's always been your passion and your dream job is still a job. It still gets stressful and daunting to do said job on a consistent level for a long period of time in order to maximize your earnings. (But when it's a lot of money, it gets easier to handle the grind.)

As for Davis, why not get all the money you can out of it? Especially since Garfield debuted a long ass time ago, well past any expiration date for creative integrity. Everything goes stale eventually, even IPs like Garfield. It's actually surprising that it's still a moneymaker all these decades later. So good for Davis still getting money from it.

[The Dark Order Inferno]

Do people really poop on Jim Davis? With Dilbert, a lot of the criticism is directed at Scott Adams because the strip and the person are inseperable at this point because he used it as a soapbox for his personal views and grievances against other comic creators, but with Jim Davis, people just criticise Garfield ad the two entities are kept far apart. I've honestly seen more praise for Davis for being so laid back with his creation, not going after fan edits like the Garfield minus Garfield stuff when he could easily have shut it all down as so many others have over the years, heck, he liked it so much they put out an official Garfield Minus book.

[carp (SPC, Itoh Respect Army)]

It's an open secret that he doesn't draw the strip anymore and hasn't for many many years. He has a team of writers and artists that rotates a lot, and he's very involved in the process, so it's not unethical or anything. But I know some people think it's really important for a strip's quality to be one person's (or pair's) vision, and Garfield is very much done by committee.

[The Summer of Muskrat XVII]

Dec 25, 2023 16:34:47 GMT -5 carp (SPC, Itoh Respect Army) said:

It's an open secret that he doesn't draw the strip anymore and hasn't for many many years. He has a team of writers and artists that rotates a lot, and he's very involved in the process, so it's not unethical or anything. But I know some people think it's really important for a strip's quality to be one person's (or pair's) vision, and Garfield is very much done by committee.

I was actually just gonna ask this, if Davis was still writing and drawing the strip. Dude's getting up there in age, and he sold off Garfield a few years ago didn't he?

[BlackoutCreature]

I mean, newspaper comic strips are a dying industry, with very few exceptions most of them are no where near the quality they used to be. If Jim Davis can make coin off of some mediocre strips in 2023/2024, and he's not an absolute douchenozzle about it like a Scott Adams, then who am I to complain?

Then again, I complain about Matt Groening and The Simpsons doing the same thing all the time, so maybe I'm just a giant hypocrite.

[wildojinx]

I wonder if it was Jim's idea to put Jon and Liz together. Heck, the fact that Jon isnt a complete loser anymore is character development.

[Cranjis McBasketball]

Dec 25, 2023 20:58:12 GMT -5 BlackoutCreature said:

I mean, newspaper comic strips are a dying industry, with very few exceptions most of them are no where near the quality they used to be. If Jim Davis can make coin off of some mediocre strips in 2023/2024, and he's not an absolute douchenozzle about it like a Scott Adams, then who am I to complain?

Then again, I complain about Matt Groening and The Simpsons doing the same thing all the time, so maybe I'm just a giant hypocrite.

Garfield and the Simpsons were both created so Jim and Matt could hang onto properties they considered close to their hearts. They were always cash cows and never anything more.

That each got some quality material is just a nice byproduct.

[Tiger Millionaire]

Hey, it used to be worse before he changed his name; he used to be Jeff Monday, and you know everyone hates Mondays.

[Confused Mark Wahlberg]

Dec 26, 2023 12:27:52 GMT -5 Tiger Millionaire said:

Hey, it used to be worse before he changed his name; he used to be Jeff Monday, and you know everyone hates Mondays.

But what if his name was Raymond Monday? Everyone hates Mondays but everyone loves Raymond.