Summary
- The totality of Jim Davis’s career and approach to his work supports the explanation that Jon did not drink dog semen in the 1990 comic strip.
- Jim Davis, the creator of Garfield, intentionally avoided offensive content in his strips, as seen in his explanation for the infamous strip.
- What Jon drank in the Garfield comic strip was actually a protein-enriched drink for pregnant dogs, not dog semen.
Welcome to the 935th installment of Comic Book Legends Revealed, a column where we examine three comic book myths, rumors and legends and confirm or debunk them. In the second legend, learn whether there was a Garfield comic strip that involved Jon drinking dog semen.
One of the most difficult types of legends to give a “true” or a “false” to is when you’re really relying on what was in the mind of the creator behind the incident. What do you do if it appears that a comic creator has done X, but the comic creator claims that they really meant to do Y, and anyone reading Y as X is just mistaken. I generally like to give some leeway to creators, and unless it is just obviously X instead of Y, I will tend to believe the creator on a topic.
Sometimes, though, it is tougher than other times, but in those cases, I think you really have to take the totality of the circumstances into mind when determining whether you believe a creator or not. And it is the totality of Jim Davis’ career on Garfield that has led me to believe him when he says that Garfield’s owner, Jon, did not actually drink a mug filled with dog semen in a 1990 Garfield comic strip.
Related
Did Batwoman Accidentally Debut Earlier Than Intended in DC’s 52?
In the latest Comic Book Legends Revealed, discover how Batwoman made her comic book debut…by accident?!!?
What happened in the Garfield strip that has caused people to believe Jon drank dog semen?
Like almost every other comic strip, the way that Garfield‘s daily comic strips are set up is that Monday-Saturday tells one story, then Sunday is its own thing, and then the next Monday either starts a new six-day story, or does six more parts of the previous story. In the case of Garfield, a “six-day story” often just means six related comic strips. Like, for instance, Garfield is on a diet. That’s a week of strips right there (maybe two). So many things can be six days’ worth of strip in a strip like Garfield, which Davis has described as being so popular because it is so predictable, readers know what to expect from the strip.
So therefore, at the end of May 1990, when Jon takes Garfield to the vet’s office, and keeps trying to flirt with Liz, Garfield’s vet, that’s easily a week’s worth of strips….
Well, on the second day of the strip, Jon, still flirting with Liz, drinks from a mug that he believes to be her coffee (as he thinks doing so would be a fun, flirty bit). However, he is disgusted when he sees that the mug was NOT filled with coffee. Liz then tells Jon that he is going to give birth to a fine, healthy litter of puppies….
Okay, obviously, almost everyone who reads that comic strip thinks that Davis is saying that Jon just drank dog semen.
But what does JIM DAVIS say?
Related
X-Men: Was Blink Always Intended to Return From the Dead?
In the latest Comic Book Legends Revealed, learn whether Blink was always intended to make a return when she was killed off in her X-Men debut
What did Jim Davis say was in the infamous mug that Jon drank from?
First off, note that the next strip has Jon continuing to flirt with Liz, so you would like to believe he wouldn’t be doing that if he had just drunk some dog semen…
The following few days of the strip have a twist, where Liz actually DOES agree to go out on a date with Jon…
Davis addressed the subject with Buzzfeed’s Ishmael Daro, and here’s Daro on what Davis told him:
“On the farm, we used to give first-calf heifers a high protein supplement to help them deliver healthier calves,” he said in a statement to BuzzFeed News. “The supplement was provided by our vet.”
Since Liz is a vet, “I assumed that there would be a similar supplement for dogs,” Davis said.
“So Jon is drinking a protein-enriched drink formulated for a pregnant dog.”
That’s why Liz mentions the “healthy” litter Jon would have — because he had just drunk a supplement for pregnant dogs, not dog semen.
“There you have it!” Davis said.
So, a couple of things.
1. The “healthy” litter part really DOES stand out, right? It doesn’t fit the joke structure if Jon actually just drank semen, and, most importantly…
2. As I’ve noted in an old legend about Davis being accused of being insulting to military veterans, Garfield creator Jim Davis is not going to write an offensive comic strip intentionally. That’s just not what Jim Davis is about. This is a guy who speaks specifically about how he doesn’t include any topical references or even PUNS because he doesn’t want the strip to be difficult for people in other countries to understand. In other words, he is all about not offending ANYONE.
So why in the world would he have a strip where he implies that Jon drank dog semen? It just doesn’t make sense.
So I think Davis is just one of those people where if he says that he intended it to be a protein-enriched drink for pregnant dogs, then it was, in fact, intended to be a protein-enriched drink for pregnant dogs. It is fair to note, though, that just because I believe Davis on this topic doesn’t mean that you have to believe him, but for the purposes of this column, I’m going with a false.
Thanks to Ishmael Daro and Jim Davis for the information!
Check out a TV Legends Revealed
In the latest TV Legends Revealed – Did Gene Roddenberry try to have an LGBTQ+ character on the original Star Trek series?
Be sure to check out my Entertainment Legends Revealed for more urban legends about the world of film and TV. Plus, Pop Culture References also has some brand-new Entertainment and Sports Legends Revealeds!
Feel free to send suggestions for future comic legends to me at either cronb01@aol.com or brianc@cbr.com.
