Heathcliff

A long-running Newspaper Comic begun in 1973 by George Gately. He helmed it until his 2001 death, when his nephew, Peter took over. The strip's title character is a fat orange cat owned by the Nutmeg family — an elderly woman, her husband, and their grandson Iggy. Not unlike Garfield, Heathcliff is a wisecracking, fat, orange cat who gets into all sorts of mischief.

The strip is also notable in that it had two cartoons based on it. The first, in 1980, was produced by Ruby-Spears and (in the second season) was paired up with an animated adaptation of Marmaduke. The second and more familiar one, produced by DiC Entertainment, came in 1984, paired with the Catillac Cats. A film adaptation was planned for 2011 but never got off the ground.

For more information on the second cartoon, see Heathcliff and The Catillac Cats.

Tropes present in the strip:

 * Animated Adaptation: Twice.
 * Cool Cat
 * Dogs Are Dumb: Played into the ground.
 * Fat Cat
 * Follow the Leader: Hmm. A fat, lazy, cantankerous orange cat... Where would that same idea later show up... You don't suppose the insanely iconic Garfield would honestly fall under Follow the Leader, would you?
 * Print Long Runners: 1973 and counting.
 * Running Gag: Heathcliff loved to torment the milkman, the garbage man and the owner of the fish market in particular.
 * Sphere Eyes
 * Those Two Guys: An awful lot of the comics seem to follow the same formula of Heathcliff doing something strange, and two random people in the background explaining what he's doing.