A lot of people, rightly so, hate what Jim Davis has done or allowed to happen to Garfield. But it too was once a great comic strip - if you were 10. Those of us who grew up in the 70's were lucky as we had two new comic strips that fit our age perfectly. We got Garfield before we were teens and C&H when we were teens, old enough to look back on our recent childhood and see parallels as well as possibly learn some life lessons to us in upcoming adulthood.
C&H is the best strip IMHO - hands down. It appealed to me as a teenager and also an adult. But the early Garfield strips are also timeless.
When I was growing up, I loved Garfield - read it religiously in the paper. Every Christmas my mom had a standing present - whatever Garfield collections that had been published that year. I think I have 1-30. A while back while sorting through my old things, I found them and put them where my kids could read them. They read them cover to cover, multiple times. My eldest, now barely a teenager has moved on, and checks out C&H books from the library (since I can't find my entire collection - it's in my old stuff somewhere) But the youngest, just learning to read, is having fun reading about the big 'fat cat' and lasagna. Those old books are worn, in cases shredded held together with tape, but adored by my four kids. I'm sure C&H will be too.
So while I agree that Garfield today is a mere shell of it's old self. There was a time it was worth reading as a kid and even an adult.