When I was a kid, I loved the Garfield comic and cartoon. He was one of those ubiquitous characters that was part of the fabric of life growing up. Hell, you couldn’t drive anywhere without seeing him hanging in a car window, but like most pop culture phenomenon, he eventually faded out of prominence into the background of life. I forgot about the comics, the classic Halloween special, and moved on. I didn’t know how much love I still had for Garfield in me until I saw these figures, so fortunately for me Boss Fight sent a set over. Let’s take a look!
The cards have a classic vibe with some nice character artwork and a big bubble that clearly shows off everything you get. The bubble is also really solidly attached to the card so it won’t be sliding off.
The figures come with a good amount of stuff, with all three having a swappable piece to change expressions. Garfield and Nermal have face plates to change looks while the entire lower have of Odie’s head swaps out.
Of course Garfield comes with some Lasagna, that had to happen. The tray has some nice detail and a little piece can be plucked out and held in Garfield’s hand. I do think it would be fun if they could do a face plate eventually that showed Garfield’s ability to unhinge his jaw and swallow a whole plate of the stuff. Almost as equally important is Pooky, his teddy bear, which he can grab and hold.
Nermal comes with their ball of string and a version of themselves boxed up for Abu Dabi. The box does open and you can put the extra eye piece for Nermal in there. I think my overwhelming impression of Nermal as a character is that they are too cute and Garfield frequently boxes them up for Abu Dhabi, so that especially works for me.
Odie has less stuff, but the extra tongue piece is quite a bit of plastic as a percentage of the total body.
I love that they figured out a way to show the wagging tail with some translucent plastic sculpted with motion lines that you can swap out with his stationary tail.
The sculpting on these captures the 2D drawing in 3D very well. It’s definitely a challenge to translate exaggerated cartoon style into 3D because they can change shape depending on the needs of the artist, but I think they nailed it here.
The articulation is based a lot on ball and socket joints with the two cats having ball and socket necks and hips. Odie also has ball and socket hips. There is a ball socket where the middle part of Odie’s head attaches to the body, but it doesn’t get a lot of movement. The top of his head attaches with a stationary peg.
The cats also have swivel/hinge joints in the shoulder, elbows, tail, wrists, and ankles. Garfield has knees and elbows, but Nermal does not, I’m assuming due the shorter limbs.
The figures have solid, simple paint work as befits their cartoon origins. I do wish that Garfield’s black stripes wrapped around the front of the face more because he looks super orange facing front, but I think that’s one of those things where it shifts from drawing to drawing. I find that he is often drawn at a 3/4 turn, so posing him that way feels natural and shows off more of the stripes.
Garfield is about 4 inches to the top of his ears, Odie is four and a half, and Nermal is just over three, so they aren’t really in scale with most of my collection, but most of my collection isn’t cartoon based anyway and a scale version of Garfield and friends would probably be little slug figures in a six inch line. So more of a stand alone line, but they look fantastic with Jada’s cereal mascots.
Overall, this is a nice little collection that I had a lot of fun with and they make great little desk buddies. I feel like they look perfect posed in front of a solid color backdrop, very much like a 3D comic strip. These are due to start shipping soon and are still available for order at Boss Fight’s website or retailers like BBTS.
They also have some upcoming Halloween and TMNT themed Garfield and Odie Two-Packs for pre-order. I wonder if a Jon figure would be feasible to scale with these. That might be kinda big. One addition I wouldn’t mind seeing eventually would be a body for the cats that has a four-legged seated pose as you often see them in the comic.
