U.S. Acres (known as Orson's Farm outside the United States and as Orson's Place in Canada) is an American comic strip that ran in newspapers from 1986 to 1989, created by Jim Davis, author of the comic strip Garfield.
Quick Facts U.S. Acres, Author(s) ...
U.S. Acres |
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U.S. Acres logo featuring the strip's main character Orson |
Author(s) | Jim Davis Brett Koth |
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Owner | Paws, Inc. |
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Current status/schedule | Concluded |
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Launch date | March 3, 1986 |
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End date | Original print run ended May 7, 1989. Reruns ran on Garfield.com from 2010 to 2020. |
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Alternate name(s) | Orson's Place (Canada) Orson's Farm (other countries) |
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Syndicate(s) | United Feature Syndicate |
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Genre(s) | Humor |
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Preceded by | Garfield (1978–present) |
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U.S. Acres was launched on March 3, 1986, in a then-unprecedented 505 newspapers by United Feature Syndicate.[1] Most papers only ran the Sunday strip, usually in the same page as Garfield. For most of the last year of the strip's existence, Brett Koth, who had been assisting Davis on Garfield at that time, was given co-creator's credit in the strip, and signed his name to the strips along with Davis. The strip was centered on a group of barnyard animals, with the main character being Orson, a small pig who had been taken from his mother shortly after being born.
At the peak of the comic's popularity, there were children's books, plush animals (particularly of the characters Orson, Roy, Wade, Booker, Sheldon, and Cody), and posters of the main characters. Shirts, mugs, mousepads, and keychains of the characters would later be available.[2][3][4] An animated adaptation was included in the TV show Garfield and Friends (1988-1994) as a spin-off segment, and continued to be so for several years after the strip ended. The final daily strip was printed on April 15, 1989, while the final Sunday appeared on May 7, 1989.
The strip was relaunched as an online webcomic on October 1, 2010, and was announced the day before in a question and answer column in USA Today.[5] Later, in celebration of the strip's twenty-fourth anniversary, the U.S. Acres strips prior to August 1, 1986 were released on Garfield.com.[6] On August 7, 2016, a Garfield comic strip showed the U.S. Acres gang (sans Bo and Blue) in its logo box, featuring Garfield eating a bag of chicken feed.
In August 2019, Jim Davis sold the rights to U.S. Acres to Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS) as part of its acquisition of Paws, Inc.[7] In April 2020, the strip was removed from GoComics. On June 19, 2020, Garfield.com shut down, redirecting to Nickelodeon's website. As a result, the strip was removed as well as the webcomic being discontinued entirely. Garfield.com was later resurrected with a limited number of selected Garfield comics, but U.S. Acres is currently unavailable on the new website.
Five comic strip collections were published, by Topper Books of New York City.
- Davis, Jim (1987). U.S. Acres Goes Half Hog!. Topper Books. ISBN 0-345-34392-1. (1986-03-03 through 1986-10-04)
- Davis, Jim (1987). U.S. Acres Counts its Chickens. Topper Books. ISBN 0-345-34881-8. (1986-10-05 through (1987-05-09)
- Davis, Jim (1988). U.S. Acres Rules the Roost. Topper Books. ISBN 0-88687-341-X. (1987-05-10 through 1987-12-13)
- Davis, Jim (1989). U.S. Acres Runs Amuck. Topper Books. ISBN 0-88687-437-8. (1987-12-14 through 1988-07-17)
- Davis, Jim (1989). U.S. Acres Hams it Up. Topper Books. ISBN 0-88687-469-6. (1988-07-18 through 1989-02-18)
Also, at least six comic strip collections were published by Berkley Books of New York City. However, some of these books are missing months of the strip and / or have strips out of order.
- Davis, Jim (1989). U.S. Acres: I Wasn't Hatched Yesterday. Berkley Books.
- Davis, Jim (1989). U.S. Acres: It's a Pig's Life. Berkley Books. ISBN 0-425-11833-9. (1986-05-24 through 1987-08-16)
- Davis, Jim (1989). U.S. Acres: Hold that Duck!. Berkley Books. ISBN 0-425-11877-0. (1986-08-18 through 1986-11-03)
- Davis, Jim (1990). U.S. Acres: Rise and Shine!. Berkley Books.
- Davis, Jim (1990). U.S. Acres: Try Counting Sheep. Berkley Books.
- Davis, Jim (1990). U.S. Acres: Take This Rooster, Please!. Berkley Books. ISBN 0-425-12007-4. (1987-04-14 through 1987-05-09, 1987-12-14 through 1988-02-08)
The final two months of U.S. Acres were not published as part of an American collection. The last U.S. Acres collection was published in England as a mass-market paperback, titled Orson's Farm Cuts the Corn. The collection, which has since gone out of print along with the rest of the U.S. Acres books, contains fifty-nine of the final sixty strips (one Sunday strip was not printed) and is the rarest of any U.S. Acres/Orson's Farm collection.
Children's books
- Davis, Jim (1988). U.S. Acres: The Great Christmas Contest. Story written by Jim Kraft, illustrated by Paws, Inc. Bantam Books. ISBN 0-553-05807-X.
- Kraft, Jim (1989). U.S. Acres: Let's Play Ball. Illustrated by Paws, Inc. Bantam Books. ISBN 0-553-34627-X.
- Kraft, Jim (1989). U.S. Acres: Sir Orson to the Rescue. Designed and illustrated by Brett Koth, Betsy Brackett, Thomas Howard, Dwight Ferris, and Dan Hasket. Bantam Books. ISBN 0-553-34765-9.
- Kraft, Jim (1989). U.S. Acres: Beware! Rooster at Work. Designed and illustrated by Brett Koth, Betsy Brackett, Thomas Howard, Dwight Ferris, and Dan Hasket. Bantam Books. ISBN 0-553-34766-7.
- Kraft, Jim (1989). U.S. Acres: The Big Camp-Out. Designed and illustrated by Betsy Brackett, Larry Fentz, Dwight Ferris, Dan Haskett and Brett Koth. Bantam Books.
- Wade Dives In
- Kraft, Jim (1989). A Most Special Easter Egg. Illustrated by Paws, Inc. Bantam Books.
- Kraft, Jim (1990). U.S. Acres: Booker Meets the Easter Bunny. Designed by Brett Koth. Illustrated by Brett Koth, Dwight Ferris, and Thomas Howard. Random House Children's Books. ISBN 0-553-34831-0.
- Wade's Haunted Halloween (from 1990)
- Happy Birthday, Sheldon