James Robert Davis (born July 28, 1945) is an American cartoonist, screenwriter, and producer. He is the creator of the comic strips Garfield and U.S. Acres. Published since 1978, Garfield is one of the world's most widely syndicated comic strips. Davis's other comics work includes T.K. Ryan's Tumbleweeds, Gnorm Gnat, and Mr. Potato Head.
Davis wrote or co-wrote all of the Garfield TV specials for CBS, originally broadcast between 1982 and 1991. He also worked on Garfield and Friends as an executive producer. Davis was the writer and executive producer for a series of CGI direct-to-video feature films about Garfield, as well as an executive producer for the The Garfield Show and Garfield Originals.
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Early and personal life
James Robert Davis was born in Marion, Indiana, on July 28, 1945. He grew up on a small Black Angus cattle farm in Fairmount, Indiana, with his father James William Davis, mother Anna Catherine "Betty" Davis (née Carter), and his brother David. Davis's childhood on a farm parallels the life of Garfield's owner, Jon Arbuckle, who was also raised on a farm with his parents and a brother, Doc Boy, and is also a cartoonist whose birthday is on July 28. Davis attended Ball State University where he studied art and business; one of his fellow students was David Letterman. At Ball State he became a member of the Theta Xi fraternity.
At Fairmount High School in 1959, Davis joined the staff of his school's newspaper The Breeze, where he became the art editor. It was here that his first comic was featured, apparently inspired by school life. Davis also drew the majority of the illustrations for his 1963 senior yearbook, using the same characters.
