This article from Slate starts out as a review of Garfield: the Movie. But it quickly veers off into a review of Garfield: the Phenomena. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but the whole thing strikes me as an attempt to damn with faint praise.

Jim Davis is "scared" of white-hot success. (OK, I'm not Maureen Dowd, the full quote is "Nothing scares the man more than the backlash that's created by white-hot success.") Chris Suellentrop, the author of the article, makes a good deal of hay that the strip was created out of "crass commercial motivations". Mr. Suellentrop harps on the commercial aspect of Garfield; that Mr. Davis is an "adman", that "Davis put as much energy into the marketing of the strip as he did into creating it." And Mr. Suellentrop mentions that MR. Davis spends less time now on the strip and more on marketing.

I'm OK with that - Jim Davis may be a businessman first, and an artist second, but there's nothing wrong with that. Jim Davis has found a way to make money. Good for him.