Cathy: another comic disappearance
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First there was Garfield Minus Garfield. Now Cathy will be minus Cathy -- because the comic strip “Cathy” is closing its doors after 34 years.
On Wednesday, “Cathy” creator Cathy Guisewite announced she’ll be retiring in October. She cited several reasons for calling it quits, including a “creative biological clock.”
It’s the kind of joke the comic Cathy might make as well. During the ‘80s and ‘90s, the comic gave the tribulations of single women lighthearted treatment, from Cathy’s annual bathing suit shopping trip to her many, many failed dates.
But if Cathy was a chipper, comic-bound Mary-Tyler-Moore type, that kind of single gal eventually started to look a bit, well, dated. Cathy’s heavy thighs didn’t have the sass of popular books like “The Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing” by Melissa Bank or “Good in Bed” by Jennifer Weiner, didn’t have the glamor of the “Sex and the City” girls in their Manolo Blahniks. Despite not needing to age, Cathy was starting to feel a bit old.
Guisewite married Cathy off to longtime boyfriend Irving in 2005, and where the comic once focused on her single life, it now often turns to their life together. Many comics include both Cathy and her husband in their frames.
“Cathy” is leaving daily newspapers, but she’s not gone. Guisewite has published more than 20 “Cathy” books, including “The Wedding of Cathy and Irving” and “I Am Woman, Hear Me Snore.”
-- Carolyn Kellogg
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