Garfield looks as fresh as ever, but the truth is that the most famous cat in the world (and that’s saying something) is about to turn 50. Much has been written about him, his beginnings, where he was a secondary character in the strip ‘Jon’ or those Halloween strips where they leave the doubt of whether everything is in his head or not. But there is something that has not been invented. The terrible case of a character who was vital in the comic strips and who, overnight, stopped appearing: Lyman.
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In 1976, ‘Jon’ began publication: the misadventures of a comic book artist who lived with his cat and a roommate, created exclusively so he would have someone to talk to. Lyman had his own dog, named Spot (we now know him as Odie), a profuse mustache, and was inevitably part of Jon Arbuckle and Garfield’s daily life. Until suddenly, he stopped.
From December 1981 to July 1982, Lyman stopped appearing in the strip. And little by little, his appearances became more and more sporadic until in 1983 he disappeared forever without any explanation after 69 gags. Fans have wondered for years what became of this secondary character without much charisma or importance, and Jim Davis, the author, has had enough of answering the question with jokes like “He joined the Peace Corps and no one ever heard of him again”, “He moved to San Francisco”, “He got fat and no longer fits in the cartoons” or the most widespread: “Don’t look in Jon’s basement”.
Is the protagonist of ‘Garfield’ a psychopath? Short answer: yes. Honestly. There are two web games that explain what happened to him, and they are downright creepy. In ‘Scary Scavenger Hunt’ he appears chained, precisely, in Jon’s basement, while in his second part, his head is in the kitchen oven. Wow.
If it weren’t for the fact that in 2012, the Garfield cartoon series provided a solution to the dilemma by becoming a spoiler in a quadruple episode explaining that he’s a nature photographer who went to Australia and disappeared looking for a mythological creature. If you want to believe it, sure. Isn’t this more of a smokescreen to keep us from thinking badly of Jon Arbuckle after all these years? Why did Odie, Lyman’s dog, stay with him all this time? Why aren’t more people investigating this? There we leave it. Pure cat mystery.
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