CATHY GUISEWITE

Snark Attack

Aack! 'Cathy' is a terrible representation of women!

Of all the terrible comic strips, "Cathy" proved to be one of the most insufferable. (Special to the Sun)

By John Houder
Humor Columnist

Published: Thursday, August 19, 2010 at 6:01 a.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, August 18, 2010 at 11:32 a.m.

When I was a little kid, I loved reading the Sunday comics. I looked forward to each new installment of "Calvin and Hobbes" and laughed at "The Far Side" even when I didn't really understand why it was supposed to be funny.

Related Links:

• Your infant has been accepted to our college prep program
• Don Draper attends his first AA meeting
• 'Live every week like it's Shark Week'
• Mel Gibson pitches his comeback movie script
• An open letter to the Guy with the Awkward Face Piercings
• More Stories

I wondered if any marriages really resembled the witty, hate-filled spite-fest depicted in "The Lockhorns" or the hilarious, alcohol-fueled domestic abuse at the center of "Andy Capp." I learned about senility from "Pickles" and how deadening office life can be from "Dilbert."

But what the Sunday comics really taught me was how to hate.

I couldn't help but get irritated by the long-winded melodrama of "Mary Worth," and my eyes burned with a fiery rage every time they landed on "The Family Circus." It seemed that if "Marmaduke" were a real dog, he would have been euthanized years ago. "Beetle Bailey" would have received the "Full Metal Jacket" soap-in-the-towel beating on the first day of boot camp.

Of all the terrible comic strips I had to endure every weekend, however, "Cathy" proved to be one of the most insufferable.

I had all but forgotten about the portly chocoholic until I read that Cathy Guisewite, the strip's creator, had announced she was going to publish her last frame on Oct. 3.

In the retrospectives and postmortems that have been written since the news broke, many sources say that "Cathy" was a revolutionary comic strip. When it first began, the titular character was a relatable everywoman representing those caught between the traditionalist and feminist sides of 1970s culture.

'Cathy' cartoonist turning to life beyond panels

by: NO AUTHOR

Posted: 8/25/2010 12:00:00 AM

Enlarge Text Size | Decrease Text Size | Change Font | Print |

BY ADAM TSCHORN

Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES -- Cathy Guisewite doesn't know what the last four panels of her "Cathy" comic strip will look like when they run in 700 daily and Sunday U.S newspapers in early October.

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 an interview to say what the next four panels will look like -- even though a deadline looms in less than 24 hours.

Click a photo to enlarge

"Quick, give me ideas!" Guisewite says as she sits behind the desk of her Studio City, Calif., home office. At first glance, the desk, with its gleaming white iMac in one corner and a disappointingly small stack of folded newspapers, Vogue magazines and scribbled-on scraps of paper ("I just did a huge cleaning") in another, seems incongruous with the widely beloved (and more than occasionally skewered) paper-piling, dressing-room loathing Everywoman comic strip character that has evolved in this room for the last 17 years.

Then one notices the word "AACK," Cathy's familiar utterance of exasperation, rendered in large wooden letters on one of the four white walls; the pieces of graph paper that flutter across the counter like autumn leaves; and the four rectangular windows above the Porta-Trace light box on which she draws.

Guisewite literally frames her view of the world in four panels -- just like a daily cartoon strip.

And now she wants out.

Earlier last week, when she announced that the last of the daily "Cathy" strips would run Oct. 2, with the final Sunday strip appearing the following day, Guisewite said she wanted to quit to spend more time with her family. (She has parents who live in Sarasota, Fla., and her daughter is about to enter her senior year of high school.)

Ensconced in the bubble of her quasi-comic-strip office, surrounded by ceramic Cathy cookie jars, stained-glass Cathy wall hangings and shelves full of Cathy figurines, Guisewite explains that the constant deadline pressure of generating a daily strip has made it hard to do much else.

It's a tension that Guisewite, who celebrates her 60th birthday next month, acknowledges. "I was somewhat obligated to keep Cathy's age as vague as possible so women of a lot of different ages could relate, so I couldn't really write about being my age. That's not appropriate for her."

Post this story to your facebook page.