This 24-karat gold stamp features a standing portrait of Garfield.
Garfield is a character from the comic strip series of the same name. He is a lazy, fat, orange cat who lives with his ‘owner’ Jon Arbuckle and the always cheerful, but very stupid dog Odie. Garfield is constantly on the lookout for food, with a strong preference for lasagna and a strong aversion to healthy food. Jon regularly forces him to go on a diet. He is too lazy to hunt mice. At night, he enjoys giving noisy performances on the fence that are not appreciated by the neighbors, sleeps a lot, is sarcastic and headstrong, destroys the neighbor's garden, and bullies the dog and Jon. Another running gag in the strip is his strong dislike of Mondays.
The creator, writer, and illustrator of Garfield is the American Jim Davis (1945). He named the comic cat after his grandfather, who in turn was named after the 20th president of the United States. Davis spent his childhood on a small cattle ranch in Indiana where about 25 cats also lived.
The comic strip first appeared via a comic syndicate in a number of American local newspapers in 1978 and was already being printed in 850 newspapers worldwide by 1981. Davis then founded the company Paws Inc., in which he placed the rights. In 2004, the strip appeared in no fewer than 2,600 newspapers, and in that peak year, merchandise generated a billion dollars worldwide. In the Netherlands, the strip appeared in De Telegraaf from November 1980 to January 2021. Comic books, films, television specials, and video games have been produced starring Garfield, and an endless series of consumer goods and clothing items bearing his likeness have been created. Davis sold Paws Inc. to Nickelodeon (part of Paramount Global) in 2019. He still produces the strip himself, with the help of 20 assistants.
