The biggest news about the comics section of the newspapers in the last few weeks was the announcement that Cathy Guisewite would be retiring her 30+ year strip Cathy. In all that time in the funnies, Cathy and Cathy have made plenty of friends, fans, admirers and critics, leading to a rather wide variety of reactions to the news. Here’s a smattering:
“Before I even thought to congratulate the cartoonist or even wonder after why she was making this move, I’ll be honest: the first question that popped into my head was ‘Holy crap: how many papers is she in?’ The answer according to the syndicate is approximately 1400. That is the most papers having a spot open up without a legacy replacement since… Calvin and Hobbes, maybe?”
—Tom Spurgeon (The Comics Reporter) in a piece entitled “Ten initial thoughts about Cathy’s End”
“‘Cathy’, which began in 1976, deserves credit for being well ahead of the chick-lit curve. Long before Bridget Jones was counting calories or Carrie Bradshaw was spending her rent money on Manolos, Cathy was twitching and sweating over the same bad habits.”
—Meredith Blake on one of the strip’s positives, in a piece for The New Yorker entitled “The Demise of Cathy”
“It’s the kind of greeting a Nazi hunter would give to Josef Mengele when he found him hiding behind a South American palm tree.”
—Stephen Pastis, Pearls Before Swine cartoonist, talking about a phone conversation with Guisewite in which he asked her permission to include her name in a strip. It’s part of a funny post demonstrating just what a good sense of humor Guisewite has.
“Ack! Cathy Ending! What Strip to Make Fun of Next?”
—Johanna Draper Carlson (Comics Worth Reading), in the headline to her post on the announcement
“Universal Uclick’s interview with Guisewite opened my eyes to the creator’s more or less overnight success and manic rush to hone her cartooning skills while working a day job in advertising. It’s honestly a pretty endearing story of the average employee breaking free from their career to follow a dream even if, as Guisewite says, ‘I’ve loved creating something that helps women feel they’re not alone. I’ve loved creating something that men will never completely understand.’
“You’re right on the money Ms. Guisewite, but you seem like a cool lady no matter how baffling I’ve found your unique brand of sweat beads and protruding tongues over the years.”
—Caleb Goellner (Comics Alliance)
“The strip began in 1976 at the height of the ‘women’s movement,’ but Cathy’s adventures and downfalls mostly centered around the self-torture women put themselves through to find a man. Although not always politically correct –and the notion of what was politically correct changed greatly during the strip’s 34 year run — this suffering was certainly grounded in reality.”
—Heidi MacDonald (The Beat), in the introduction preceding an interview with Guisewite
“In fact, even after a nearly nonstop, 34-year run of putting words in the mouth and anxieties in the mind of her alter ego, she’s hard-pressed during the course of an interview to say what the next four panels will look like — even though a deadline looms in less than 24 hours.”
—Adam Tschorn (Los Angeles Times), in his lede to his interview with Guisewite about the end of the strip
“But not everybody can be Wonder Woman or Brenda Starr. Though Cathy, who debuted at the height of ’70s-era feminism, never fit into the ‘Family Circus’ or ‘For Better or Worse’ domestic sphere. She was never wry like ‘The Boondocks’ and ‘Calvin and Hobbes,’ or political like ‘Doonsebury.’ Yet her mere existence, as the star of the first nationally syndicated strip by a woman, as a lady in the funny pages, is political in itself.”
—Mary Elizabeth Williams, Salon’s Broadsheet
“Is Mary Beth Williams playing madlibs with ‘…feminist trailblazer’? That would explain her post entitled ‘Goodbye Cathy, feminist trailblazer.’”
—Lindsay Beyerstein, bigthink.com
“If we learned anything from Bill Amend’s partial retirement back in 2007 was that just because a comic strip targeting a particular demographic retires, doesn’t automatically mean another like-demographic comic strips are going to take its place.”
—Alan Gardner (The Daily Cartoonist), offering some analysis about what Cathy’s retirement could mean for funny pages and the cartoonists who seek to fill them
August 19th, 2010 at 1:13 pm
Um, you do know that this strip was considered an open joke for years, right? There was some reference that she had to improve her drawing skills. Where is the evidence that this ever happened. I can’t think of any strip since Ernie Bushmiller’s NANCY which was laughed at more.
August 19th, 2010 at 6:37 pm
She was never (…) political like ‘Doonsebury.’
Save for the brief interlude where Andrea campaigned for Dukakis at a time when she was fired for taking maternity leave.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_xjuWSzELZfs/TGSEaiuzkCI/AAAAAAAAAiA/8eMq7bT7yVM/s1600/CathyWoman.jpg
http://sundaycomicsdebt.blogspot.com/2010/08/cathy-gets-wise.html
January 17th, 2011 at 6:06 pm
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January 17th, 2011 at 9:09 pm
Man “Is this seat empty?” Woman “Yes, and this one will be too if you sit down.”
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