History
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. However, Davis also approached syndicates to publish Gnorm Gnat and was rejected. 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 would later tell the press.
Davis also recounted that one editor had advised him that "Your art is good, your gags are great, but bugs—nobody can relate to bugs!" Davis took the advice to heart and killed off the character Gnorm by means of having him stepped on by a foot, and Davis 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.
Read more about this topic: Gnorm Gnat
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The second day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more”
—John Adams (1735–1826)
“A country grows in history not only because of the heroism of its troops on the field of battle, it grows also when it turns to justice and to right for the conservation of its interests.”
—Aristide Briand (1862–1932)
“We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?”
—Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)