h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Garfield the Cat - A708707
Author: Iyandes - U188926

I think I got down the basics but I would like someone elses opinion if you can do that. This is my first guide entry so sorry if its wrong.

It needs some work. I think it could use some editing and expansion.

In 1981 a writer by the name of Jim Davis made a cat, a cat by the name of Garfield. Since then, he has made his way to screen, cards, posters and even air fresheners. The first book was called The Great Lover. There are now 46 books.

Garfiled has a few friends in the story and they all play rolls:

Jon: Garfield's owner or as he likes to call him his pet.
Odie: Walking drool factory and as thick as two short planks (maybe even dumber).
Alrene: Garfields supposed girlfriend.
Pookey: Garfields teddybear and best friend.
Nermal: An annoying kitten who is always making Garfield feel old or ugly.

All in all, he's a great character and he keeps on going to this day.

You might state that he was orginally in newspaper comic strips. He's a lover of lasagna. Two of the places that the cat has been most successful has been as a plush toy and on television. I don't recall him ever making it to the silver screen.

YOu may want to check out http://www.garfield.com for more information.

Two Bit's suggested layout would be much better, and if you have a look here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/C801
you will find out about writing using Guide ML. It really isn't complicated if you haven't seen it before

There was a point where it seemed every car had a Garfield with suckers on his feet stuck in the back window.

Definitely mention lasagne - Jon used to put Garfield on diets occasionally when he thought he was getting tubby, he had my every sympathy

You should probably mention that Odie is a dog too

Good topic choice!

k

Hi there!

This is a good topic choice, but I agree with the others... this does need expansion and editing, such as maybe the popularity of Garfield, rival cartoons, original audience etc., so perhaps this could be moved to the Writing Workshop for the time being.

It's a promising start, however, so don't be put off by my comments! It just needs a bit more work, that's all IMHO

Caper Plip

Hello
I'd agree with what's already been said- there's a lot that need to be added to this entry.
If the author's still interested I'll make suggestions, but he hasn't been seen for a little while.
Iyandes - are you still interested in working on this article?

How about some of the with & wisdom of Garfield? "A diet is too little of a good thing," for example, or "Diet is just Die with a T at the end." And don't forget the lasagne.

What about the 'Monday'-motif?

All in all a great topic, but all peers in this thread agree there should be more.

HELL

Strange, though - Garfield stopped making me laugh about ten years ago. Dilbert still gets a good belly-laugh several times a week, but Garfield just doesn't seem funny any more.

Garfield with&wisdom: I'm not overweight - I'm undertall!

Iyandes has been noticeable by hir absence in this thread, despite some seriously good advice from other Researchers.

How about it Iyandes? Are you going to respond?

my first entry i was unable to respond and fix all the stuff and great contributions other researchers pointed out... finally i just got fed up and took it out of PR, maybe this is also a similar issue

I can explain Iyandes' absence. He's not had the chance to get on recently (He uses AOL, which can't cope with internet pages). However, I'm sure he'll be on soon. Possibly tonight, but if not then some time next week. Hopefully...

Recalling the old addage about "Man bites dog"... how about an intro that reads:

In 1981 a man gave birth to a cat. Not by any means an every-day occurence, except the man was cartoonist Jim Davis, his cat was an orange and black-striped moggy called Garfield, and the birth led to a world-wide phenomenon.


"Garfiled has a few friends in the story and they all play rolls:"

This should be "Garfield" and "roles".

Kelli's point is spot-on. There was a time where you couldn't go anywhere without seeing windscreen Garfields suction-cupped to the back window of almost every car. Not sure if this was a new thing but soon after, every popular cartoon character seemed to have its own window-mountable plush version.

I hope Iyandes isn't discouraged by this - it just shows that it's a very popular topic, so well done for picking it. Just needs a little more work on it

Jimster

I'm gonna' try and get him back onto H2G2 tonight. I'll try to direct him here and hopefully he'll work on it a little more.

Please do, because despite what's said above, it doesn't actually need THAT much work - most of the basics are already in. It could just do with being structured a bit more. Don't worry about doing GuideML - the subeditor can do that. Just press

return

a few times in the plain text to show where you want headers and stuff.

It's a popular topic - I'm surprised nobody has done it already, so well done for picking it!

H.

Still no reply from Ivandes. Pity. It seems the entry has not been modified at all despite lots of helpful suggestions.

There's another unedited entry on Garfield A498684, which has a little more structure than this. Maybe you can get some inspiration by looking at what has been done elsewhere.

Other entries on comic strip type entries which might provide a models for this one are:

A635870 Little Nemo (edited)

A732962 Dilbert (unedited)

A689772 Alex (edited)

A627680 Krazy Kat (edited)

All worth a look.

A760989 Dilbert (still unedited, but with more stuff in it)

H.