Statue of Garfield Will Get Face Lift

SPRINGFIELD, Vt. — The owner of a 10-foot-tall statue of the comic strip feline Garfield has agreed to give the figure a paint job and a face lift to avoid a lawsuit from the cartoon cat’s syndicators.

“I’m going to paint him over into a calico,” said Goldie May, owner of the Country Cat Gift Shop, which specializes in cat-related items.

May said she agreed Wednesday to repaint the cat black, orange and white to avoid a threatened copyright lawsuit by the United Features Syndicate, which distributes the popular “Garfield” comic strip to hundreds of newspapers across the nation.