Jim Davis is an American cartoonist best known for creating the popular comic strip Garfield. He was born in 1945 in Indiana and began drawing at a young age. He attended Ball State University and graduated with a degree in business. After college, he worked as a freelance cartoonist and eventually created the Garfield comic strip in 1978. The strip has since become one of the most popular comic strips in the world, appearing in over 2, 500 newspapers and journals. Davis has also written and illustrated several books about Garfield and his other characters.