Trope: Garfieldization (Garfieldian evolution)

Garfieldization is an art style trope in which a media's art style gradually changes from complex, realistic styles to simplified styles, even occasionally with an actual species growth or evolution process. The artstyle may tend to be wackier in early publications.

Peanuts is one notable example of reverse Garfieldization. In the early 1950's the characters were a mimick of Lil' Folks (Schulz's pre-Peanuts 1940's spiritual ancestor) mostly babies, kindergarteners and first graders (which is hinted by Chuck playing with trucks and Lucy, Linus and Schroeder first introduced as babies/toddlers in succession), and grew up in the 50's to transform into their final age (mostly mid-elementary school, except for Sally Brown and Rerun). The artstyle become more abstract by the 1960's and remained as such, but during the 60s-70s, the physiology of the drawings and characters were more "wacky" and stretchy. By circa 1956, all characters lost their "Lil Folks" neoteny and their heads and bodies became proportioned due to growingbup a few years.

Nancy and Sluggo experienced phases of mild reverse Garfieldization over the progress of technology and culture post-60's.

The Simpsons experienced straight up Garfieldization concerning the removal of the stretch point at the corner of their mouths, and more stable, rounder artstyles. In the 1990's the artstyle was wackier, and the first season's episodes was the most wacky, draftlike and similar to the Tracey Ullman Show Simpsons shorts.