PURR-FECT TIMING AFTER 15 YEARS, JIM DAVIS' `GARFIELD' FINALLY READY FOR HIS BIG-SCREEN CLOSE-UP.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Writer

His mug has been plastered on earrings, underwear and oven mitts. He has his own brand of flan. Fifteen years ago, you couldn't drive down the street without seeing him suction-cupped to the window of a passing car. He appears in more than 2,600 newspapers worldwide (including this one), boasts a readership of a quarter billion people and, at one time, had his own television series and a string of TV specials.

What he hasn't had - until now - is his own movie. That will change Friday with - what else? - ``Garfield: The Movie.'' And even though some people are questioning the timing (``That's like making 'Drabble: The Movie,' '' comedian David Cross complains in an interview with E! Online. ``Why don't they just make 'Hollywood Squares: The Movie' or 'Alf'?''), the fact is that Garfield continues to add more newspapers and products each month to his empire, a dominion that stretches from creator Jim Davis' Muncie, Ind., home to the farthest reaches of the globe. (He's big in Pago Pago.)

Consider this: To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the comic strip last year, several hundred people boarded an ocean liner to accompany Davis on a Garfield cruise. When the ship docked off a Caribbean island, there was a wedding. Garfield did not perform the ceremony. He gave the bride away.

Not bad for a sarcastic, lazy fat cat that began life on June 19, 1978, in 41 newspapers, born from Davis' canny observation that while there were plenty of comics about dogs, cats were confined to being mostly supporting characters in strips.

``He hit the right note at the right time,'' says Malcolm Whyte, founder of San Francisco's Comic Art Museum and author of the book ``Great Comic Cats.'' ``Not only did Garfield appeal to cat lovers, he embraced all the wonderful things that we humans pretend we don't have - gluttony, laziness and meanness.''

Garfield Inc.

Davis and his wife, Jill, live and work at their company's complex in the Indiana countryside. Davis walks about 100 yards each workday to his Paws Inc. office, where he manages a staff of 57 people who help him write and draw the comic strip and come up with new ways in which Garfield's likeness can be put on products. There's a gym (rarely seen by Davis, who, like Garfield, doesn't believe in jogging), a Garfield memorabilia showroom and, most important, a cafeteria, which pretty much always features Garfield's favorite food, lasagna.

``I can only write about what I know,'' the genial Davis says by phone. ``I love lasagna. I don't like to exercise. People make their lives way too complicated. My view is life shouldn't be that tough.''

If that sounds like a particular cat, Davis, 58, will readily concede that he's a blend of Garfield and the cat's nerdy owner, Jon. (``He doesn't suffer for his art,'' ``Beetle Bailey'' cartoonist and longtime pal Mort Walker says.) Though he deeply admires the work of Gary Larson (``The Far Side'') and Bill Watterson (``Calvin and Hobbes''), Davis for the life of him cannot understand the pressure they put on themselves, pressure that eventually led to early retirements.

``When I feel that kind of strain, I lower my standards,'' Davis says. ``If it becomes drudgery, I'll pick up a golf club. It should be a pretty carefree process. It's humor. It's funny. If you work too hard at it, the strip appears labored. You should have fun doing it.''

Of course, this comes from a guy who wakes up well before the sun rises and typically works a 12- to 14-hour day overseeing every aspect of Garfield's domain. (``He has the kind of problems every cartoonist wishes they had,'' Walker says.)

And for all the talk about lowering standards, it was Davis' fear that he couldn't properly compete with Disney that kept him from selling Garfield's feature film rights all these years.

``I was approached a number of times, but it's only human nature to compare yourself to Disney, and I knew if we went the traditional animation route, we'd never have the budget to match what they were doing,'' Davis says.

A cat-alyst emerges

The solution came with the advent of computer animation. Once Pixar's ``Monsters, Inc.'' demonstrated that fur could be realistically replicated by a computer, Davis believed he could create a three-dimensional character that could capture Garfield's decidedly nonfeline nature. (He needs those opposable thumbs to hold coffee mugs and eating utensils.)

Still, before committing to the CGI route, the filmmakers tried to find the perfect potbellied cat and, failing that, even designed a fat suit for a properly trained animal to wear.

``We tried everything,'' director Peter Hewitt says. ``Ultimately, we knew we had to go CGI because you just couldn't get the delicate nuances of the comic performance we needed from a real animal.''

Besides, as actor Breckin Meyer (who plays Jon in the movie) points out, Garfield really isn't so much a cat as ``an extension of a lazy guy.''

``Basically, he's Bill Murray in a cat suit,'' Meyer says.

Which is why Murray was the obvious choice to replace the late Lorenzo Music as the voice of Garfield. Shockingly, Murray - who, like Garfield, isn't big on working - said yes, agreeing to what turned out to be about 15 recording sessions held in various corners of the world, from New York to Naples.

``Bill has got 'selfish and lazy but charming' banged to rights,'' Hewitt says. ``He just did his thing. I worked with him as much as anyone can ever work with Bill Murray, which is to say not a lot.''

Davis is already thinking about a sequel - not surprising, given the relentlessly joyful way he and his creative team continue to promote their favorite feline. Davis is also planning well into the future, saying he'd like for Garfield to continue at least 100 years after he's gone.

``I've got two grandchildren, and I've decided that they're always going to have a pencil in their hands and a piece of paper in front of them,'' Davis says, laughing.

Not that Davis is planning on slowing down any time soon.

``Drawing the strip is still my favorite thing to do,'' Davis says. ``It's the one thing that I do well. And I still believe that I have that one gag in me that's going to make the whole world laugh.''

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) The FAT CAT

Garfield expanding his feline empire to the big screen

(2) no caption (Garfield wearing sunglasses)

(3) A man and his cat: Comic strip creatro Jim Davis and his feline

(4) no caption (Garfield)