Cathy hangs up her baggy sweats

Cathy Guisewhite is bringing her long-running newspaper comic Cathy to an end; the last strip will run on October 3. I’ll confess I haven’t read the strip in over a decade—my daily paper doesn’t carry it—and on those odd occasions when I do see it, it strikes me as being awfully stale. But back when I was young and single, Cathy was a comforting presence, someone with self-esteem issues, a couple of extra pounds, and hair with a mind of its own—just like me! I could start off each morning with a chuckle and the feeling that I wasn’t some sort of a freak, and particularly when you’re living in New York, that’s a valuable thing. I even tried to line up an interview with Cathy Guisewhite when I worked for a women’s magazine for a stretch, but for some reason it never came through.

Guisewhite has been drawing Cathy for 34 years, and it sounds like she’s tapped out creatively. She also has a teenage daughter which, I can testify from real life, is a strain on one’s time. And maybe, although she doesn’t say as much, she realizes the comic is in a rut and doesn’t want Cathy to become a zombie strip, running on in perpetuity long after the creative spark, and for that matter, the creator, is gone. So good for her for moving on and ending it on her own terms.

(Via Comics Worth Reading.)