It's a boy: Garfield's creator clarifies lazy cat's gender

This February, we saw Garfield’s page on a lockdown to stop the cat’s gender from going from “Male” to “None”, back and forth, in a Wikipedia Edit War. The editors brought the debate into the public by taking their arguments to Twitter. Tweeting and retweeting as they made changes to the entry based on their references. Jim Davis had told the Mental Floss back in 2014 that Garfield wasn’t “really male or female or any particular race or nationality, young or old”, a recent finding that made all the difference.

Garfield's peaceful existence

The fat cat and "his" friends regularly appear on the syndicated comic strip Garfield started by Jim Davis in 1978.

There's the owner Jon, Jon's dog Odie, and Garfield, our fat and lazy cat. There's also friends of Garfield's: teddy bear Pookie, Garfield's vet Dr. Liz, Arlene, Nermal, and many humans. The gang exchanged banters and sometimes insults, but mostly Garfield is famous for his laziness, love of lasagna and sleeping, plus his owner's socially awkward life.

Male or nothing? There is no between

In a recent story, news publication The Washington Post reported that the heated argument between the editors was sparked by Virgil Texas, who had dug up a quote from Jim Davis during the Mental Floss interview where Davis had said Garfield wasn’t really male or female. Virgil used that quote as the basis for updating Garfield's gender in his Wikipedia entry: from male to none.

This lead to a bit of a clash with Garfield's fans, who also chimed in on Twitter. The consideration was that according to Garfield canon the cat had no gender and that cats probably have no concept of gender whatsoever.

Canon or not, Garfield has a girlfriend

Although the editors did gather a long list of proofs pointing out that Garfield was clearly male, the prolonged debate did not end there.

These editors were then debating over which proof was canon and which of them were not. The final decision over whether or not Garfield was male or none was really not up to the editors. What ended the debate was a quote from 71-year-old Davis, who had told the Post, "Garfield is male." Garfield has a love-hate relationship with a female cat named Arlene.

Another one of Jon's pets, Odie the dog, also has a Wikipedia page that says the dog has no gender.