Garfield is a fat, orange tabby who hates Mondays, loves lasagna and holds the rest of the world in lazy contempt. Jim Davis launched the strip in 1978, and it built a small comic empire on one simple joke: a cat whose appetite and sloth are matched only by his sarcasm. He torments Odie, the good-natured and none-too-bright dog, and quietly bosses around his hapless owner Jon Arbuckle, who lives in Muncie, Indiana. The humor is broad, warm and endlessly repeatable, running on kicked dogs, spider squashings and a war on the calendar. It became one of the most syndicated strips ever.