Jim Davis Reveals He Studied Musculature Of Medical Cadavers To Properly Draw Jon

ALBANY, IN—Explaining that true artistry requires obsessiveness and a scientific understanding of form, cartoonist Jim Davis revealed Friday that he studied the musculature of medical cadavers in order to properly draw the character Jon in his syndicated comic strip. “Before I drew a single panel of Garfield, I spent months meticulously examining corpses so that I could make Jon as lifelike as possible,” said Davis, who estimated that he dissected over 30 bodies in his quest to understand how muscles, ligaments, and tendons work beneath the skin. “I’ve got notebooks filled with just sketches of hands so that I could perfectly render Jon’s three fingers and thumb in a way that makes anatomical sense. When he squints, you can practically see the orbicularis oculi muscles contracting the lids over his enormous egg-shaped eyes. Jon represents mankind and the intersection between the human and the divine, so it was very important to me that his proportions reflect that.” Davis added that he drew Nermal based on a memory of some bloated roadkill he saw once.

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