In the early days of Garfield, Jon's "can he understand what his cat is thinking?" relationship with the titular character had not yet been established. As a result, creator Jim Davis introduced a roommate for Jon named Lyman, who also brought Odie along for the ride. Several years would pass and Jon would grow to converse with Garfield more, and though Odie remained, Lyman mysteriously vanished from the strip. Asked about the whereabouts of Odie's former owner some years later, Davis would respond "Don't look in Jon's basement!" Everyone had a good laugh at the joke, and nothing more was thought about it- at least, not until Lyman would appear chained up in one of the official Garfield website's Halloween-based Flash games, "Scary Scavenger Hunt," as seen above, while the sequel had his head shown in an oven. Uh... Davis was joking, wasn't he? Naturally, the story arc where Garfield finds himself alone in his home (now long abandoned) led people to question the darker side of Jim Davis and the Garfield strip itself. For what it's worth, Davis has also stated that Lyman "joined the Peace Corps and was then never heard from again." Whether one would consider it a retcon or not, a 2012 episode of The Garfield Show titled "Long Lost Lyman" addressed the matter in more concrete terms, revealing that he became a wild life photographer who disappeared while searching for a mythological creature of the Bigfoot persuasion, prompting his old roommate and their pets to go looking for him.
Former Nintendo Power writer, current Nintendo Force writer. Wrote the book on Mega Man (The Robot Master Field Guide). Was once fired by Vince McMahon. Dabbles in video games, comic books, toys, and fast food curiosities. Once had a new species of exotic bird named after him. It died.
You can find more of his writings, musings, and other such things on his websites at Nyteworks.net.
