Gmail.com

[snopes]

Comment: According to Wikipedia and a handful of other sources, most of
which cite Wikipedia, the domain name gmail.com was originally owned by
Jim Davis as part of a free e-mail service for Garfield fans.

I have been unable to independently verify the veracity of this claim.

[Nick Theodorakis]

There are some very comic-knowledgeable people on rec.arts.comics.strips, if you want to ask (or want me to ask) there.

Scott Nickel, who works for the Davis empire and used to post to r.a.c.s., also has a blog where he might be reachable:

http://scottnickel.blogspot.com/

Nick

[KirkMcD]

In 1996, gmail.com was owned by
US Email. There is a copyright notice going back to 1994 on that page.
http://web.archive.org/web/199612231...www.gmail.com/

At the end of 1998, it was redirecting to Net Concepts.
http://web.archive.org/web/199811111...www.gmail.com/

At the beginning of 1999, it was back to going to US Email.
http://web.archive.org/web/199901250...www.gmail.com/

In July 2000, it seems to go back to a parked page on Net Concepts.
In April 2004, it starts to redirect to gmail.google.com.
http://web.archive.org/web/200404060...p://gmail.com/

Web Archive doesn't have any records prior to 1996. So it doesn't rule out the original story yet.

[videoguy]

It appears to be true. A few people here say they had gmail (Garfield) accounts before Google took it over.
http://www.intelliot.com/2004/03/sla...comment-294783

[nazugrit]

Garfield's G-mail was located at http://gmail.garfield.com. It gave you a name@catsrule.garfield.com email address.