''Gnorm Gnat'' was an American

gag-a-day A gag-a-day comic strip is the style of writing comic cartoons such that every installment of a strip delivers a complete joke or some other kind of artistic statement. It is opposed to story or continuity strips, which rely on the development of ...

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

by Jim Davis based on fictional insects, with the primary focus on a

gnat A gnat () is any of many species of tiny flying insects in the dipterid suborder Nematocera, especially those in the families Mycetophilidae, Anisopodidae and Sciaridae. They can be both biting and non-biting. Most often they fly in large num ...

named Gnorm. The strip appeared in ''The Pendleton Times'' in

Pendleton, Indiana Pendleton is a town in Fall Creek Township, Madison County, Indiana, United States. The population was 4,253 at the 2010 census. History Pendleton was platted in 1830, and incorporated as a town in 1854. It was named for town founder Thomas Pendle ...

(and would be the only newspaper to publish the strip), from 1973 to 1975, but failure to take the character to mainstream success led Davis to instead create the comic strip ''

Garfield ''Garfield'' is an American comic strip created by Jim Davis. Originally published locally as ''Jon'' in 1976, then in nationwide syndication from 1978 as ''Garfield'', it chronicles the life of the title character Garfield the cat, his human ...

''. Mike Peters, the cartoonist for ''

Mother Goose and Grimm ] A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given childbirth, birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the cas ...

'', has said that ''Gnorm Gnat'' is now a part of "cartoon folklore" as a failure that paved the way for major success.Peters, Mike. "Foreword". In ''20 Years & Still Kicking!: Garfield's Twentieth Anniversary Collection''. By Jim Davis. New York: Ballantine Books, 1998, p. 10.

History

Davis developed the idea for the strip while assisting cartoonist Tom Ryan (cartoonist), Tom Ryan on his ''

Tumbleweeds A tumbleweed is a kind of plant habit or structure. Tumbleweed, tumble-weed or tumble weed may also refer to: Films * ''Tumbleweeds'' (1925 film), William S. Hart film * ''Tumbling Tumbleweeds'' (1935 film), Gene Autry film * ''Tumbleweed'' (1 ...

strip.'' Davis saw the possibilities for gags with insect characters, and the strip was adopted by ''The Pendleton Times'' starting in early 1973. However, Davis also approached syndicates to publish ''Gnorm Gnat'' and was rejected.Davis, Jim. ''20 Years & Still Kicking!: Garfield's Twentieth Anniversary Collection.'' New York: Ballantine Books, 1998, p. 14. According to writers Mark Acey and Scott Nickel, Davis would receive rejections for ''Gnorm Gnat'' for years.Acey, Mark and Scott Nickel, ''Garfield at 25: In Dog Years I'd Be Dead.'' New York: Ballantine Books, 2002, p. 14. "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 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 ''The Far Side'' is a single-panel comic created by Gary Larson and syndicated by Chronicle Features and then Universal Press Syndicate, which ran from December 31, 1979, to January 1, 1995 (when Larson retired as a cartoonist). Its surrealist ...

'' by

Gary Larson Gary Larson (born August 14, 1950) is an American cartoonist, environmentalist, and former musician. He is the creator of ''The Far Side'', a single-panel cartoon series that was syndicated internationally to more than 1,900 newspapers for fif ...

. For years, it was believed that last-ever published strip of ''Gnorm Gnat'' was Gnorm Gnat meeting his demise by being stepped on by the foot of a human,

Monty Python Monty Python (also collectively known as the Pythons) were a British comedy troupe who created the sketch comedy television show '' Monty Python's Flying Circus'', which first aired on the BBC in 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four ...

-style. 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, with the actual final strip (published on Christmas Day 1975) just having the protagonist thank the fans who stuck with the strips while standing next to the message Merry Christmas with Gnorm saying "Thanks, Pendleton." The document also contained some strips for Davis' next work, ''Jon'', a prototype to what would become ''Garfield'', which debuted in the ''Times'' on January 8, 1976, two weeks after ''Gnorm Gnat'' ended (it was renamed ''Garfield'' on August 1, 1977).

Legacy

''Garfield'' would later become accepted for national distribution by

United Feature Syndicate United Feature Syndicate (UFS) is a large American editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States and established in 1919. Originally part of E. W. Scripps Company, it was part of United Media (along wit ...

in 1978 (the strip ended its run in the ''Times'' on March 2, and made its national debut on June 19 that year) and became a worldwide success. In 1992, one ''Garfield'' book called ''Garfield Takes His Licks'' referred to Gnorm as an

in-joke An in-joke, also known as an inside joke or a private joke, is a joke whose humour is understandable only to members of an ingroup; that is, people who are ''in'' a particular social group, occupation, or other community of shared interest. It i ...

. ''Gnorm Gnat'' was listed as #2 among the "Top Ten Comic Strips Jim Davis Tried Before ''Garfield''", being placed behind "Garfield the Toaster" and above "Milt the Incontinent Hamster." In 1997, one ''Garfield'' comic strip featured a fly talking to a spider; Davis alluded to ''Gnorm Gnat'' by commenting that, "After nearly 30 years, I finally got a bug strip published".Davis, Jim. ''20 Years & Still Kicking!: Garfield's Twentieth Anniversary Collection''. New York: Ballantine Books, 1998, p. 155. However, Davis's fellow-cartoonist Mike Peters looked back on ''Gnorm Gnat'' in an unfavorable way. Peters claimed, "We can always be thankful that Jim's first strip never made it... ''Gnorm Gnat'' has gone down in cartoon folklore as a most fortunate failure. Can you imagine a bright orange gnat on every car window? A great, huge gnat for the

Thanksgiving Day Parade The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is an annual parade in New York City presented by the U.S.-based department store chain Macy's. The Parade first took place in 1924, tying it for the second-oldest Thanksgiving parade in the United States with ...

. A big fat gnat saying 'I hate Tuesdays.'"

Characters

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 The straight man is a stock character in a comedy performance, especially a double act, sketch comedy, or farce. When a comedy partner behaves eccentrically, the straight man is expected to maintain composure. The direct contribution to the ...

" who sometimes behaves like the character

Walter Mitty Walter Jackson Mitty is a fictional character in James Thurber's first short story "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", first published in ''The New Yorker'' on March 18, 1939, and in book form in '' My World—and Welcome to It'' in 1942. Thurber ...

. *Lyman is an insect with buck teeth who wears a hat. He is supposed to be insane. 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 fruit fly who has two weeks to live. *Dr. Rosenwurm is a worm who is highly intelligent. *Cecil Slug is a

slug Slug, or land slug, is a common name for any apparently shell-less terrestrial gastropod mollusc. The word ''slug'' is also often used as part of the common name of any gastropod mollusc that has no shell, a very reduced shell, or only a smal ...

merely described as a stupid character. *Drac Webb is a villainous

spider Spiders ( order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species ...

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.

References

{{reflist, 2 American comics characters Comics about animals Comics characters introduced in 1972 1972 comics debuts 1975 comics endings Gag-a-day comics Fictional insects Indiana culture Pendleton, Indiana Jim Davis (cartoonist)