Gnorm Gnat

• Title — Gnorm Gnat • Creator — Jim Davis • Status — Ended • Syndicate — None • Genre — Humor • Followed By — Jon

• Illustration — Gnorm Gnat strip for October 16, 1975 • Illustration — The final comic, which contradicts Davis' later statements. Davis developed the idea for the strip while assisting cartoonist Tom Ryan on his Tumbleweeds strip. Davis saw the possibilities for gags with insect characters, and the strip was adopted by The Pendleton Times starting in early 1973. During this time, Davis unsuccessfully pitched Gnorm Gnat to various syndicates. According to writers Mark Acey and Scott Nickel, Davis would receive rejections for Gnorm Gnat for years. "I thought bugs were funny, and nobody else did", Davis later said. Davis also recounted that one editor had advised him, "Your art is good, your gags are great, but bugs—nobody can relate to bugs!" Davis took the advice to heart and then turned to Garfield. Some in the media have also reported that Davis had become "bored with the strip." Another reporter suggested that the notion that no one can relate to insects has been disproved by some jokes in the comic strip The Far Side by Gary Larson. For years since the strip ended, Davis claimed that the last published Gnorm Gnat strip involved Gnorm being stepped on by a human foot. This was later debunked after a Google Drive document containing many editions of The Pendleton Times that included Gnorm Gnat comics was uploaded in 2019 by YouTuber Quinton Kyle Hoover, a noted Garfield fan. The document contained the actual final strip (published on Christmas Day 1975), which depicted Gnorm standing beside a "Merry Christmas" message, saying, "Thanks, Pendleton." The document also contained some strips for Davis' next work, Jon, a prototype to Garfield, which debuted in the Times on January 8, 1976, two weeks after Gnorm Gnat ended. The comic strip Jon was renamed Garfield on August 1, 1977. The Gnorm Gnat comics were published without copyright notices, making them and the characters public domain under pre-1978 U.S. copyright law.

The characters of Gnorm Gnat were meant to be presented in a "simple, humorous style" of appearance. Davis displays the characters and describes them in the book 20 Years & Still Kicking!: Garfield's Twentieth Anniversary Collection. • Gnorm Gnat is a gnat who Davis says plays the "straight man" and who sometimes behaves like the character Walter Mitty, a trait later shared by Orson Pig from U.S. Acres/Orson's Farm. • Lyman is an insect with buck teeth who wears a hat. Described as "insane", he frequently irritates his "best friend" Gnorm with his punning quips and roundabout methods of cheating at tennis and checkers. Davis later named a character after him in Garfield. • Dr. Gougo is an unspecified insect who acts as an incompetent medical practitioner. He speaks in a broken German accent. • Freddy is a bedraggled fruit fly who has one week to live, however, despite this, he does not die in the strip. • Natasha is a beautiful insect whom Gnorm has a crush on, this was later referenced by Dr. Liz Wilson & Jon in Jon. • Dr. Morton Rosenwurm is an erudite worm. He has a fondness for reciting poetry, particularly the works of fictional Poet Laureate "John Arbuckle". • Cecil Slug is a naïve, dimwitted slug. • Drac Webb is a villainous spider (introduced as the strip's "token nasty") who eats other characters, typically by trapping them in webs. • Wench Webb is Drac Webb's wife and a "source of many Bickerson-type discussions". She is one of only two female characters in the strip.