Hallelujah: Cathy comic strip to be retired in October

[Ponch8]

October 3 is the last day that this comic strip will appear. I never liked it much, because it recycles the same four or five jokes over and over. She's too fat to fit into a swimsuit. She gets aggravated by her mother. Repeat this sequence for over 30 years.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-live-0812-cathy-comic-20100812,0,482840.story?track=rss

[woodstockbirdybird]

Only 34 years too late.

[Steve MB]

it recycles the same four or five jokes over and over.

They added some new ones? When did that happen?

[Tim R. Mortiss]

So how do you think they should wrap it up? She goes crazy at her office and shoots everyone before turning the gun on herself?

[Frank]

On October 4th, they begin to print Classic Cathy.

[Czarcasm]

On October 4th, they begin to print Classic Cathy.Are you trying to get this thread moved to The BBQ Pit??

[Ponch8]

On October 4th, they begin to print Classic Cathy.

May the good Lord help us if the artist decides to "retire" the same way the "For Better or Worse" artist did.

[Lynn Bodoni]

I used to love Cathy. I used to really identify with the character, and go through the same issues. However, I grew up, and found other issues. Cathy...didn't. Yeah, I don't like the way I look in a bathing suit. You know what? I didn't like the way I looked in one when I weighed 115 pounds, either. Nowadays, I buy something with a skirt on it, and just get over myself. If someone has an issue with the way I look, well, they don't have to look at me. I'm not trying to put myself on display. And Cathy is old enough to do the same. She needs to quit looking at the microkinis and start looking at things that are appropriate for her age. She needs to act her age, and act like a professional woman. When she was in college, it was appropriate for her to stress out over some of these things. She's supposedly a middle aged (or at least not a 20 something) woman now, with a husband and a career. She needs to act like it. She and her mother should have moved on to a new stage in their relationship, even if Cathy never has kids. Cathy stopped developing, as a person, as a character, sometime in her mid 20s. However, she has visibly moved into new stages in her job and life.

Running the same stale jokes in the strip every day really wears a strip out. We can all point to strips that do this (how many more times will Dagwood have to run into the letter carrier before one of them changes his behavior?) and without fail, these strips have a loyal readership...and are deadly dull to people who don't have an emotional attachment to the strips. It's better to quit while they're still asking for more.

I MISS The Far Side, Calvin and Hobbes, Bloom County, and the daily Foxtrot (the guy still does a Sunday strip). But I'm glad that I didn't have to suffer through those strips getting old and stale. I can remember them fondly, without the pain of seeing them getting stale. BC and The Wizard of Id used to be really great strips when I was a kid, and this isn't just nostalgia talking, I still have some of the old books of strip collections. But the writer/artist has become obsessed with new ideas, which don't work with the old settings.

[aceplace57]

Cathy was in high school or college in the early years wasn't she?

Then later she got the office job and bf. Did she ever marry him?

[CaveMike]

There should have been an 'Ack!' in the title.

[panamajack]

I did let out a laugh at this recent strip (http://mediumlarge.wordpress.com/2010/08/09/monday-august-9-2010/).

[Snowboarder Bo]

I will dance on Cathy's grave!

Srsly, even my craptacular local paper (the LVRJ) moved Cathy to the freaking classifieds like 10 years ago; too many fans to stop running it, but no way does it need to take up space from Get Fuzzy, Cul de Sac and all the other good strips. And now it won't even need that space! Woot! I'd rather read another classified about a property being rezoned than read this shitty comic.

[fiddlesticks]

Lio rules: http://www.gocomics.com/lio/2010/08/11/

[Ponch8]

The local paper in every city I've lived in dumped Cathy several years ago except for the comics-deficient Chicago Tribune. The Journal Star in Peoria, IL got rid of it when I was living there; the Gainesville (FL) Sun dumped it when I lived there, and the Washington Post got rid of it when I lived there. I don't see why the Tribune editors saw fit to hold onto Cathy to the very end.

[Yllaria]

. . . (how many more times will Dagwood have to run into the letter carrier before one of them changes his behavior?) . . .

They're starting to mix in references to new media. A recent strip had Blondie texting to the letter carrier to warn him when Dagwood left. Not a laugh riot, but a nod to progress.

I liked the strip where Elmo* and his friends were raising money with a Virtual Car Wash. You email them a digital picture of your car - they photoshop out all the dirt and imperfections and email it back to you.

*the pesky neighbor kid in Blondie

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

Lio rules: http://www.gocomics.com/lio/2010/08/11/

That's awesome!

[Biffy the Elephant Shrew]

The San Francisco Chronicle, which has reduced its Sunday comics "section" to a single four-panel sheet in recent years, still wastes valuable real estate on the Sunday Cathy. (They don't run the daily strip.) I'm hoping that they will use the freed-up space when Cathy ends for the Sunday Sherman's Lagoon, which currently runs weekdays only.

[Snooooopy]

. . . (how many more times will Dagwood have to run into the letter carrier before one of them changes his behavior?) . . .

They're starting to mix in references to new media. A recent strip had Blondie texting to the letter carrier to warn him when Dagwood left. Not a laugh riot, but a nod to progress.

I liked the strip where Elmo* and his friends were raising money with a Virtual Car Wash. You email them a digital picture of your car - they photoshop out all the dirt and imperfections and email it back to you.

*the pesky neighbor kid in Blondie

Progress sure does come slowly to that strip. I remember what a big deal it was when, after six decades, Blondie was finally liberated from housewifery with her catering business.

[salinqmind]

Our local fishwrap dropped Cathy years ago, and NO ONE NOTICED. Or if they did, they couldn't be bothered to say anything, yea or nay. I liked it at one point when it was still new and funny and could sort of identify. I liked her parade of loser blind dates (though she settled for Irving only because it was endless fodder for marriage jokes. No baby jokes, she had to have friends with kids, more endless fodder. some of it was good in a satirical way). But jeez, time marches on, and she's never advanced beyond an irritating finicky high-maintenance ass. Shaped like an egg, too.

[teela brown]

I used to like it a little, but that all evaporated when she married Irving. The guy is a total ass, and he even got Cathy fired at one point on his advice as a downsizing consultant. Any guy who got me fired would earn undying hatred from me.

[D. Fenestrator]

Our local paper dropped Cathy a while ago, too (before the marriage, IIRC), but we're stuck with that dratted For Better or For Worse "reboot" thing. I'd almost rather have Cathy.

[digs]

The local paper in every city I've lived in dumped Cathy several years ago except for the comics-deficient Chicago Tribune. The Journal Star in Peoria, IL got rid of it when I was living there; the Gainesville (FL) Sun dumped it when I lived there, and the Washington Post got rid of it when I lived there...

You are my hero. Can you start moving around and working on Funky Winkerdepressionbean?

For the record: I'd be willing to start a brilliant comic strip if I could be assured it'll replace Prince Valiant in every paper it's infecting with Medieval Bad Hair Boredom.

[straight man]

Read her interview about retirement here (http://images.gocomics.com/images/gocomics/news/Cathy_QnA.pdf), as linked to by the Comics Curmudgeon (http://joshreads.com/). She was almost making me sympathetic, up until she got to the men-just-can't-understand-this section. I haven't met any women who like her comics, either! And all the things she says men can't understand... we experience too, sometimes. But she plainly had a bit of a one-track mind. Anyway... she's leaving! Hoorah!

[Markxxx]

I found a lot to relate to Cathy when I was in my 30s. Lynn Bodoni summed up the problem perfectly, and I second everything she said.

If you read old Cathy book, you will laugh. Some of her stuff was really funny. When Cathy dates guys who weren't Irving it was funny. When Cathy had new job issues, it was funny. The marriage to Iriving was the end for me. You never felt like Cathy really loved Irving, but only tolerated him till something better came along.

Conflict is the key to funny. And when Cathy settled down (not only in marriage but all areas like work) it became unfunny. It also lost a lot when the militant femminist Andrea got married and put on the back burner of the character list.

[markdash]

The Comic Strip Doctor has never been more relevant:

http://wondermark.com/the-comic-strip-doctor-cathy/

In fact, this entire website is awesome, and I highly recommend reading all of it.

[amarinth]

Conflict is the key to funny. And when Cathy settled down (not only in marriage but all areas like work) it became unfunny. It also lost a lot when the militant femminist Andrea got married and put on the back burner of the character list.Andrea's wedding & Zenith's birth were pretty funny.

Lynn's right. Once upon a time, the strip was pretty good, but it got stale. She should have either quit or made some changes years ago.

[Rilchiam]

Was Andrea on the back burner after she got married, though? I remember her getting pregnant and becoming a helicopter parent before we had the term.

[Lynn Bodoni]

I've now read a couple of articles about the retirement...the artist, who is 60, says that she wants to focus more on her daughter, who is 18 and going in her last year of high school. Guess what? It's too damn late now. By the time your child is 18 (which would make Guisewite 42 when she had her), your job as a parent is essentially OVER. Or at least it should be over. Yeah, you can still give some support and advice, but the time to really spend a lot of time with your child is when the child is a CHILD. An 18 year old is legally an adult, and if you didn't spend a lot of time with her when she was a baby and toddler and gradeschooler, you can't make it up now when it's convenient to you.

OK, so that minirant doesn't really have anything to do with the comic, but I do think that it says something about Guisewite and her priorities.

[asterion]

I think the real question is who will Stephen Pastis have to make fun of now.

[jayjay]

I think the real question is who will Stephen Pastis have to make fun of now.

It's not like dumb, stale comics are an endangered species. There's plenty of fodder for Rat on the funny page(s).

[BobLibDem]

Besides the very repetitive and limited material, Guisewite can't draw worth a crap. 99% of the time, all characters are seen head on. She can't draw a profile to save her soul, and she as far as I know has never tried to draw an oblique view. You'd think if you were in a profession for 30+ years, you'd bother to learn how to draw.

[gaffa]

I've now read a couple of articles about the retirement...the artist, who is 60, says that she wants to focus more on her daughter, who is 18 and going in her last year of high school. Guess what? It's too damn late now. By the time your child is 18 (which would make Guisewite 42 when she had her), your job as a parent is essentially OVER. Or at least it should be over. Yeah, you can still give some support and advice, but the time to really spend a lot of time with your child is when the child is a CHILD. An 18 year old is legally an adult, and if you didn't spend a lot of time with her when she was a baby and toddler and gradeschooler, you can't make it up now when it's convenient to you.
Her child is 18? Sounds like the situation with Lawrence Fishburne's daughter.

[Wendell Wagner]

Let's get some facts straight before we continue this discussion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathy_Guisewite

http://www.answers.com/topic/cathy-guisewite

http://www.avidcruiser.com/2009/10/travels-with-cathy/

Guisewite is 59. She adopted her daughter five years before marrying her husband. She has a stepson from her husband's first marriage.

[descamisado]

I'm just not getting where saying "I want to focus on my 18-year-old daughter" automatically means she neglected her up until now. Maybe it just means she wants to focus on her more, at a crucial point where she's about to lauch into adulthood, to magnify and sum up all the work work she's done up to now (or it's just a stock phrase that's used by a lot a public figures when it's actually something else going on).

I don't necessarily think most anyone would be take the approach described above, even if the above were true, but her statement doesn't automatically mean she's done little or nothing up to now.

[Monstera deliciosa]

Let's get some facts straight before we continue this discussion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathy_Guisewite

http://www.answers.com/topic/cathy-guisewite

http://www.avidcruiser.com/2009/10/travels-with-cathy/

Guisewite is 59. She adopted her daughter five years before marrying her husband. She has a stepson from her husband's first marriage.

Her 60th birthday is on September 5th, 23 days from now. I'd hardly consider referring to her as 60 now an error worth noting. She's not an infant whose development is measured in weeks or months.

And it doesn't matter how she acquired her daughter, (especially since she adopted the child in 1992, the year Guisewite would have turned 42, so there is no significant factual error there, either.) It is perfectly valid to wonder why someone would suddenly wish to devote more time to an 18 year old "child" (not to say that there aren't good reasons, as descamisado noted) so I don't see how these facts are vital to the advancement or improvement of this discussion.

[Monstera deliciosa]

To be more on topic, I haven't read the strip in about 25 years. It just seemed to reinforce a view of women that I found tiresome, especially the self-hating obsession with weight, and her general lack of self-confidence.

[digs]

I've now read a couple of articles about the retirement...the artist, who is 60, says that she wants to focus more on her daughter, who is 18 and going in her last year of high school. Guess what? It's too damn late now. By the time your child is 18 (which would make Guisewite 42 when she had her), your job as a parent is essentially OVER. Or at least it should be over. Yeah, you can still give some support and advice, but the time to really spend a lot of time with your child is when the child is a CHILD. An 18 year old is legally an adult, and if you didn't spend a lot of time with her when she was a baby and toddler and gradeschooler, you can't make it up now when it's convenient to you.

OK, so that minirant doesn't really have anything to do with the comic, but I do think that it says something about Guisewite and her priorities.

From facebook (reprinted without permission):

So you guys you have like GOTTTT to find my mom a hobby she's all like Oooh, Zeeenith (yeah, that's what she calls me, and she always pronounces it with this loooooong E) we're going to have soooo much fun getting lattes together YEAH WELL HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ME ORDER A LATTE no, because that's YOU ordering the froo-froo foamy whatthefuckaccino and then wondering why you're not losing weight and secretly hoping the twenty something behind the counter will flirt with you. And you WONDER why you have Zero Self-Esteem? Well, you're not suckin' it off me! Hey, news: I HAVE FRIENDS that I already hang out with and I really don't have time for some suddenly-out-of-work Lunch Lady. Oh, and those friends? They're like My Own Age, so we can bitch about teachers and asshole jock douchbags and Oh, Yeah, our parents!!!

Seriously, guys? Could you like get some editor somewhere to plead for "Cathy: The Retirement Home Years" or something? Or get her to teach cartooning classes in like Mankato. Or a drawing class... oh, that's right. Never mind. Hey, get her to TAKE some drawing classes! That go all day long somewhere. My friends would totally pitch in.

[CaveMike]

(or it's just a stock phrase that's used by a lot a public figures when it's actually something else going on).I agree. I think she just used it as the stock "I want to spend more time with my family" answer. Besides, we're all complaining that Guisewite has been phoning it in for ages; she obviously hasn't been spending all of her time on her career. I suspect given the level of success she already had at 42, that she was able to spend a lot of time with her daughter.

[Dag Otto]

From facebook (reprinted without permission):

So you guys you have like GOTTTT to find my mom a hobby she's all like Oooh, Zeeenith (yeah, that's what she calls me, and she always pronounces it with this loooooong E) we're going to have soooo much fun getting lattes together YEAH WELL HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ME ORDER A LATTE no, because that's YOU ordering the froo-froo foamy whatthefuckaccino and then wondering why you're not losing weight and secretly hoping the twenty something behind the counter will flirt with you. And you WONDER why you have Zero Self-Esteem? Well, you're not suckin' it off me! Hey, news: I HAVE FRIENDS that I already hang out with and I really don't have time for some suddenly-out-of-work Lunch Lady. Oh, and those friends? They're like My Own Age, so we can bitch about teachers and asshole jock douchbags and Oh, Yeah, our parents!!!

Seriously, guys? Could you like get some editor somewhere to plead for "Cathy: The Retirement Home Years" or something? Or get her to teach cartooning classes in like Mankato. Or a drawing class... oh, that's right. Never mind. Hey, get her to TAKE some drawing classes! That go all day long somewhere. My friends would totally pitch in.


Finally - something funny that's related to Cathy.

[Chessic Sense]

You know what I hate about Cathy? It's not the weigh issues. It's not the shopping. It's not the Mom.

It's the sweat.

The little beads of sweat that fly off of her when she rants about something. Her arms flail around, she spews some garbage rant about shopping these days, and a few barely noticeable pellets of liquid get propelled from her forehead.

It's the only comic strip that's ever grossed me out on a regular basis.

[Lynn Bodoni]

I think the real question is who will Stephen Pastis have to make fun of now. Oh, there's plenty of material. Family Circus, Marmaduke, Blondie, Curtis, Red and Rover...I'd have to look at the Dallas Morning News for more, but those are just off the top of my head. Pastis has done several Family Circus parodies, I know that.

[Wendell Wagner]

Monstera deliciosa writes:

> . . . I don't see how these facts are vital . . .

Knowing more facts is always vital.

[Guinastasia]

Monstera deliciosa writes:

> . . . I don't see how these facts are vital . . .

Knowing more facts is always vital.


Yes, but not to the point of nitpicking things to death.


Back on topic: I wonder if The Onion will have Jean Teasdale lamenting the demise of Cathy, seeing how it's her favorite comic strip.

(I too miss Calvin and Hobbes.)

Now, if we could only get rid of The Family Circus...

[Stink Fish Pot]

Cathy must have had an audience, but I'll be damned if I could ever find one person to admit to it. That strip, along with For Better or Worse were the two worst strips for decades, and yet they continue this crapola.

Thank the heavens for Cathy's demise. PLEASE don't let the strip rerun through syndication. The fact they are doing that with For Better or Worse is bad enough.

Prince Valiant is still out there? I never understood who this comic appealed to.

[Jeff Lichtman]

Something that has always annoyed me is Guisewhite's habit of jamming so much verbiage into the panels that there's hardly any room for the artwork. It's not funny - it's just bad writing. You'd think with all the repeated "jokes" she would have learned to tighten it up, but in fact she got sloppier over time. Lazy.

[Lynn Bodoni]

Cathy must have had an audience, but I'll be damned if I could ever find one person to admit to it. That strip, along with For Better or Worse were the two worst strips for decades, and yet they continue this crapola. The WORST strips? Do you not get Dennis the Menace, Marmaduke, and Family Circus? Blondie? Momma? Pluggers? I'd say that FBOFW and Cathy are/were...well, not BETTER, as that would imply that they are good. However, I'd say that Cathy and FBOFW don't suck as much as the other comics I've mentioned.

There's no excuse for Blondie, or Dennis the Menace, or Marmaduke still existing. Cathy falls into this category of comic, because the strips in all these comics are essentially the same from one year to the next. The writers do occasionally make token efforts to include new elements in the strips (Dennis the Menace included non WASP characters, and one of Dennis' friends is actually a GIRL) but these strips have formulas, and apparently most of their fans LIKE reading the same jokes over and over.

[MeanOldLady]

it recycles the same four or five jokes over and over.

They added some new ones? When did that happen?
On October 4th, they begin to print Classic Cathy.Ha! You kids are too funny.

Read her interview about retirement here (http://images.gocomics.com/images/gocomics/news/Cathy_QnA.pdf), as linked to by the Comics Curmudgeon (http://joshreads.com/). She was almost making me sympathetic, up until she got to the men-just-can't-understand-this section. I haven't met any women who like her comics, either!Oh, now you just wait a minute. I'm sure there's some 67 year old retiree from Kankakee, IL somewhere who, in between knitting sweaters for her grandchildren and gardening, reads Cathy comics and finds them just darling!

I've now read a couple of articles about the retirement...the artist, who is 60, says that she wants to focus more on her daughter, who is 18 and going in her last year of high school. Guess what? It's too damn late now. By the time your child is 18 (which would make Guisewite 42 when she had her), your job as a parent is essentially OVER. Or at least it should be over. Yeah, you can still give some support and advice, but the time to really spend a lot of time with your child is when the child is a CHILD. An 18 year old is legally an adult, and if you didn't spend a lot of time with her when she was a baby and toddler and gradeschooler, you can't make it up now when it's convenient to you.

OK, so that minirant doesn't really have anything to do with the comic, but I do think that it says something about Guisewite and her priorities.Yeah, she should just give up on her children.

[Markxxx]

You know what I hate about Cathy? It's not the weigh issues. It's not the shopping. It's not the Mom.

It's the sweat.


You know what I hate about Cathy? She had no nose, and then when she turns sideways suddenly the nose appears. Well is it there or is it not there? C'mon you can't have it both ways.

Now the Family Circus ROCKS!!!! You can have so much fun with the comic strip.

Cathy was a very funny strip. The word to focus on is WAS. If you read her early stuff, and you're over 30 you'll get it. It stopped being funny for me around 2000. But Peanuts stopped being funny as soon as Charles Schulz kids grew up.

The only consistantly funny strips I can think of were Calvin & Hobbes and the Far Side and that is only because the creator knew when to quit while he was ahead.

[asterion]

Prince Valiant is still out there? I never understood who this comic appealed to.
I don't really read it, but the local paper does run it and I do look at it. Even if the stories are slow and ponderous, the artwork is really good. Shoe is the same way in that the artwork is good, but the pacing is really bad.

[LavenderBlue]

Cathy managed to embody just about every single ugly stereotype about women.

She's materialistic, obssessed to the point of lunacy about her body, incapable of managinging her finances, greedy, shallow and simply boring company. Perhaps once upon a time the comic had something important to say about the lives of women but that was a very long time ago.

[Monstera deliciosa]

Monstera deliciosa writes:

> . . . I don't see how these facts are vital . . .

Knowing more facts is always vital.

I disagree. More facts are always good to have in a general sense; they aren't always relevant to a particular discussion.

Knowing when Ms. Guisewite's birthday falls, and whether she was 59 years, 11 months and 8 days old, or 60 years old, wasn't relevant. Neither was the fact that her daughter was adopted as an infant, rather than her biological child.

To everyone else: Sorry for the hijack. I won't continue it.

[Baal Houtham]

Yeps all around:
I used to like it a little, but that all evaporated when she married Irving. The guy is a total ass, and he even got Cathy fired at one point on his advice as a downsizing consultant. Any guy who got me fired would earn undying hatred from me.

Besides the very repetitive and limited material, Guisewite can't draw worth a crap. (...) You'd think if you were in a profession for 30+ years, you'd bother to learn how to draw.

It just seemed to reinforce a view of women that I found tiresome, especially the self-hating obsession with weight, and her general lack of self-confidence.

You know what I hate about Cathy?

It's the sweat.

The little beads of sweat that fly off of her when she rants about something.

It's the only comic strip that's ever grossed me out on a regular basis.

Cathy managed to embody just about every single ugly stereotype about women.


The strip introduced a few "truths" that comics hadn't previously discussed, such as:
Serious problems with self-image
Binge eating

After those issues had been observed from a few dozen angles, there was no reason for the strip to continue.

The artwork was hideous. The characters were repulsive visually and personally. I don't even like thinking about "Cathy".

[Markxxx]

The artwork was hideous. The characters were repulsive visually and personally. I don't even like thinking about "Cathy".

She wasn't the greatest artist in the world but their are worse. I suppose she could've hired someone to draw Cathy better but I'm glad she didn't. It's too bad none of her earliest strips are in books, 'cause her drawings were really, really, really (did I mention really) bad when she first started.

She got a lot better.

[waterj2]

Has this thread really gone this long discussing tired, unfunny comics that have been wearing the same lame jokes thin with repetition for years without any mention of Garfield?

[chappachula]

You know what I hate about Cathy? It's the sweat.
She had no nose
And the hands.---the hands.
No detail at all, just blobs, with bumps that might be fingers,but of wildly different lengths.....they look like they were drawn by a child in kindergarten .

[Colibri]

Cathy managed to embody just about every single ugly stereotype about women.

She's materialistic, obssessed to the point of lunacy about her body, incapable of managinging her finances, greedy, shallow and simply boring company. Perhaps once upon a time the comic had something important to say about the lives of women but that was a very long time ago.

I agree. I always found the strip incredibly misogynistic, especially astonishing for being written by a woman. Cathy embodied the absolute antithesis of any woman I would ever want to be involved with.

[Baal Houtham]

The artwork was hideous. The characters were repulsive visually and personally. I don't even like thinking about "Cathy".

She wasn't the greatest artist in the world but their are worse. I suppose she could've hired someone to draw Cathy better but I'm glad she didn't. It's too bad none of her earliest strips are in books, 'cause her drawings were really, really, really (did I mention really) bad when she first started.

She got a lot better.

I'd ask for a link, but really I don't want to see.

Another of the strip's innovations was the love/repulsion relationship between daughter and mother.

I don't think any comic had been so explicit about that social dynamic before. I've since noticed it in real-life many times, but Cathy was what stuck my nose in it originally and made me alert to it.

[flodnak]

"Cathy" fulfilled a very important function. It allowed newspaper editors to argue that they already had a comic strip drawn by a woman, so there was no need to go looking for another for balance :rolleyes: (Also "Jumpstart" for a Black cartoonist and "Mallard Fillmore" for a conservative point of view, with "Jumpstart" being the odd one out here as it is sometimes actually funny.)

If you're looking for a funny strip drawn by a woman and with a feminist point of view, I recommend "Stone Soup (http://www.gocomics.com/stonesoup/)".

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

"The Onion" notes Cathy's demise:

link (http://www.theonion.com/articles/cathy-coming-to-an-end,17904/)

[Jolly Roger]

"Cathy" fulfilled a very important function. It allowed newspaper editors to argue that they already had a comic strip drawn by a woman, so there was no need to go looking for another for balance :rolleyes: (Also "Jumpstart" for a Black cartoonist and "Mallard Fillmore" for a conservative point of view, with "Jumpstart" being the odd one out here as it is sometimes actually funny.)

If you're looking for a funny strip drawn by a woman and with a feminist point of view, I recommend "Stone Soup (http://www.gocomics.com/stonesoup/)".

I have to agree, and its sad. Cathy was a pretty bad strip IMO, and I have never met anyone who actually liked it. Surely they exist, but I've never encountered them.

I hope that the space left behind from Cathy's departure will be filled with a strip thats actually funny.

[Lynn Bodoni]

I USED to like Cathy, back when she and I were much younger. However, I quit saying "ACK!" when I try on clothes, and she hasn't. I matured, and she never learned to relate to her mother as an adult. Yes, her mom will always consider Cathy to be her little girl...but Cathy doesn't have to RESPOND to her mom as a little girl.

[DKW]

I was never a big fan of this strip, but at least it was taught me about a lifestyle and mindset that I wasn't aware of before and didn't have any sacred cows. That's more than I can say for Garfield, The Wizard of Id, Hagar The Horrible, Blondie, etc.

The best thing Cathy Guisewite could have done would be to expand her horizons a bit, explore a wider range of women's issues (I know more than one person recommended experimenting with bisexuality), but there's no way she would have stayed syndicated. Look how much heat the The Boondocks got for its ENTIRE existence for subjects that are, in retrospect, really nothing special.

I got the last book, about the wedding, and it was a blast (and from my experiences, all too true).

It's a good time to be retired; I'm just not confident whatever replaces it is going to be any better. It's just an incredibly lousy time for newspaper comics these days.

[Guinastasia]

"The Onion" notes Cathy's demise:

link (http://www.theonion.com/articles/cathy-coming-to-an-end,17904/)


Damn, I was hoping it would be from Jean Teasdale. She loved Cathy.

[Markxxx]

Well it went out with a whimper. It's a shame that such a good comic declined so much. And yes, it wasn't good in the last few years but it was quite funny in it's day :)

In the last comic strip

It was revealed Cathy was pregnant with a girl

Here's the last comic strip (http://www.gocomics.com/cathy/2010/10/03/) [courtesy of Go Comics]

[Two Many Cats]

I haven't followed "Cathy" in years, but I saw on the news that the comic was going to end with Cathy announcing her pregnancy.

After years of tedious repetitive plots, she's going to end on that cliffhanging bombshell? WTF?

Ecch, I've wasted enough thought on this.

[Qadgop the Mercotan]

"The Onion" notes Cathy's demise:

link (http://www.theonion.com/articles/cathy-coming-to-an-end,17904/)
From your link:
"As long as Aunt Fritzi is still around to give me my morning wood, then I am gold."

Amen.

I expect we'll see Jean Teasdale's take on it eventually. You know how she is about meeting deadlines.

[Bosstone]

I haven't followed "Cathy" in years, but I saw on the news that the comic was going to end with Cathy announcing her pregnancy.

After years of tedious repetitive plots, she's going to end on that cliffhanging bombshell? WTF?

Ecch, I've wasted enough thought on this.I saw it as more of a happily ever after than a cliffhanger. But then, I don't normally give Cathy any thought; the only reason I even looked at the strip was because it made a rare appearance on the Comic Curmudgeon's blog.

[NicePete]

Well it went out with a whimper. It's a shame that such a good comic declined so much. And yes, it wasn't good in the last few years but it was quite funny in it's day :)

In the last comic strip

It was revealed Cathy was pregnant with a girl

Here's the last comic strip (http://www.gocomics.com/cathy/2010/10/03/) [courtesy of Go Comics]

Ray Smuckles is psychic! (http://achewood.com/index.php?date=05232003)

[Tom Tildrum]

I was never a big fan of this strip, but at least it was taught me about a lifestyle and mindset that I wasn't aware of before and didn't have any sacred cows. That's more than I can say for Garfield, The Wizard of Id, Hagar The Horrible, Blondie, etc.

You knew less of the mindset of a single woman than that of a viking or a wizard?

:D

[Enright3]

How relevant are comics now anyway? It's not something I have considered before; but I'm one of the huge masses of people who don't bother with a daily paper anymore; unless it's the Wall Street Journal that my boss lets me have when he's not in the office.

Don't get me wrong; There's definitely a need for comics... but for me I'm more than happy to read them online with my other news. I use iGoogle and have frames dedicated to Questionable Content (http://questionablecontent.net/) and to XKCD (http://xkcd.com/). Sadly I have one for Perry Bible Fellowship (http://www.pbfcomics.com/) too, but don't guess those are written anymore. Does anybody know?

Anyway, I guess I'm saying that I think newspaper comics will be going the way of the Dodo bird, and shifting more into an online format (or comic book format). Jeph Jacques has been supporting himself with QC for several years now on merchandise sales.

[Snowboarder Bo]

How relevant are comics now anyway? It's not something I have considered before; but I'm one of the huge masses of people who don't bother with a daily paper anymore; unless it's the Wall Street Journal that my boss lets me have when he's not in the office.

Don't get me wrong; There's definitely a need for comics... but for me I'm more than happy to read them online with my other news. I use iGoogle and have frames dedicated to Questionable Content (http://questionablecontent.net/) and to XKCD (http://xkcd.com/). Sadly I have one for Perry Bible Fellowship (http://www.pbfcomics.com/) too, but don't guess those are written anymore. Does anybody know?

Anyway, I guess I'm saying that I think newspaper comics will be going the way of the Dodo bird, and shifting more into an online format (or comic book format). Jeph Jacques has been supporting himself with QC for several years now on merchandise sales.

I still get my morning paper every day, and the comics are either the very first or the very last thing I read.

I'm not averse to reading them online, but I know of no place online that will collect and collate them like the newspaper does. And no, I'm not going to bookmark all my favorite comic strips and then spend 30 minutes a day clicking bookmarks and links so I can read the comics. That is why newspapers are sometimes better than teh intranets. Also, newspapers are better for wrapping fish and lining bird cages.

[Bosstone]

I'm not averse to reading them online, but I know of no place online that will collect and collate them like the newspaper does. And no, I'm not going to bookmark all my favorite comic strips and then spend 30 minutes a day clicking bookmarks and links so I can read the comics. That is why newspapers are sometimes better than teh intranets. Also, newspapers are better for wrapping fish and lining bird cages.You have only to ask, and the SD shall deliver (even if you didn't ask in the first place, the SD shall deliver): The Houston Chronicle comics page (http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComics.mpl). You can even select a set to follow and create a single page you can bookmark with all your chosen comics on it.

[Rilchiam]

There is one Cathy strip that I think is brilliant, both when it was new and in hindsight.

But context is important. Cathy's friend Andrea was always the trendsetter, or at least the first follower of trends. In the '70s, she was a total "I am woman, hear me roar" feminist. Then, abruptly, in the '80s, she visited Cathy after a long absence. Cathy mused about Andrea, who was always so strong, so bold, so independent...A knock on the door, Cathy opened it, and was immediately knocked flat on her butt by Andrea's humongous pregnant stomach. "Andrea who swore she'd never let a man touch her?" The Yuppie Puppy trend, perfectly illustrated in four line drawings.

[BrassyPhrase]

I'm not averse to reading them online, but I know of no place online that will collect and collate them like the newspaper does. And no, I'm not going to bookmark all my favorite comic strips and then spend 30 minutes a day clicking bookmarks and links so I can read the comics. That is why newspapers are sometimes better than teh intranets. Also, newspapers are better for wrapping fish and lining bird cages.You have only to ask, and the SD shall deliver (even if you didn't ask in the first place, the SD shall deliver): The Houston Chronicle comics page (http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComics.mpl). You can even select a set to follow and create a single page you can bookmark with all your chosen comics on it.

that's how I read mine now. I live in Houston, but it's rare to be able to find the daily edition at all. The weekend edition doesn't even have all the ones I do like.

So I created something like "my comics page"and bookmarked it, and I see the ones I like and a few I'll always be curious about.

[fiddlesticks]

My local paper replaced Cathy with Dustin, which appears to be Zits+10 years from first impressions.

[LurkMeister]

My local paper, at least not yet, hasn't replaced Cathy with anything. They just added a little extra space between all the comic strips on the side of the page where it used to appear, which means that instead of all the comics on that page being precisely side-by-side they are slightly staggered, creating a zig-zag effect that looks like hell.

[Ponch8]

My local paper replaced Cathy with Dustin, which appears to be Zits+10 years from first impressions.

If you've read one Dustin comic, there's no need to read it ever again. Here is how every single Dustin strip goes: Dustin is sitting around on the couch or otherwise being lazy. His dad makes an insulting comment about Dustin's laziness, lack of drive, etc.

The Chicago Tribune has replaced Cathy with something that manages to be equally bad. (I don't remember its name.) Both strips I've seen have been identical: a sleazy guy at a bar is trying to hit on a woman or a beer tap. In addition, the pencilwork is sub-Ziggy, as Comic Book Guy would say.

[BigT]

I haven't followed "Cathy" in years, but I saw on the news that the comic was going to end with Cathy announcing her pregnancy.

After years of tedious repetitive plots, she's going to end on that cliffhanging bombshell? WTF?

Ecch, I've wasted enough thought on this.I saw it as more of a happily ever after than a cliffhanger. But then, I don't normally give Cathy any thought; the only reason I even looked at the strip was because it made a rare appearance on the Comic Curmudgeon's blog.

Agreed. It's a classic sitcom ending. The others are a proposal, wedding, moving away or out, etc. You have to have some event like that to end a comic.

That said, I understand why you might think of it as a cliffhanger: having a kid should actually change Cathy, and could make her interesting again. On sitcoms, the point is that the big change helps make the premise of the show impossible to continue. But, with Cathy, that would be a plus.

[AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet]

the last Cathy comic sucked. Although the thought bubble coming from the fetus gave me a chuckle.

[Ferret Herder]

My local paper replaced Cathy with Dustin, which appears to be Zits+10 years from first impressions.

If you've read one Dustin comic, there's no need to read it ever again. Here is how every single Dustin strip goes: Dustin is sitting around on the couch or otherwise being lazy. His dad makes an insulting comment about Dustin's laziness, lack of drive, etc.

The Chicago Tribune has replaced Cathy with something that manages to be equally bad. (I don't remember its name.) Both strips I've seen have been identical: a sleazy guy at a bar is trying to hit on a woman or a beer tap. In addition, the pencilwork is sub-Ziggy, as Comic Book Guy would say.

Dustin is definitely Zits grown up a few years - slacker teen turns into slacker young man, his GF leaves him, and he stagnates at his parents' house.

I made a point of looking at the Tribune's comic page this morning to check the new strip's name, and forgot it completely. I even forgot the "plot" for today until you reminded me.

[Markxxx]

I would've liked to see Cathy decide to have an abortion. That would've been a great way to end it.

Cathy) Mom, I'm pregnant and I decided to terminate the pregnancy.

Then just let the strip end....

It would've assured Cathy went out with a bang.

[Two Many Cats]

I would've liked to see Cathy decide to have an abortion. That would've been a great way to end it.

Cathy) Mom, I'm pregnant and I decided to terminate the pregnancy.

Then just let the strip end....

It would've assured Cathy went out with a bang.

Oooooh! I second the motion!

[RickJay]

Read her interview about retirement...
Quite frankly, she sounds like a complete nut.

[Morbo]

RE: backlash about cancelling comics: a few years ago one of my friends worked at the Dallas Morning News in the "arts" or whatever department. There was a big push to quietly cancel a bunch of strips.

According to my friend, out of all the comics they tried to quietly get rid of, the one for which they got the most angry letters was....

...this one (http://www.gocomics.com/loveis/2010/10/06/).

To the astonishment of everyone that worked there. She said it wasn't even close.

[Rilchiam]

Yeah, that's the Jean Teasdale effect. People who are susceptible to glurge to begin with are also set in their ways, sometimes neurotically, and naturally want things the way they want them or else. A lot of people like Pearls Before Swine (for example), but I can't see even its most ardent fans raising that kind of ruckus.

[digs]

Well it went out with a whimper. It's a shame that such a good comic declined so much. And yes, it wasn't good in the last few years but it was quite funny in it's day :)

In the last comic strip

It was revealed Cathy was pregnant with a girl

Here's the last comic strip (http://www.gocomics.com/cathy/2010/10/03/) [courtesy of Go Comics]

If --big IF-- you want to have your jaw flop open at the sheer immature of the public, just read the comments under that last comic.

Full of treasures like:

Have truly enjoyed Cathy all these years!
Thanks for wonderful work and great plots.

Shoot! Were there great plots and I missed them?

Thank you Cathy G. for all the years you gave us, the laughs and smiles, the craziness, the obsessions, the chocolate, shoes and most importantly, family...

And OMG, there were people who never noticed how neurotic these women were!:

Cathy’s mother was always the perfect mother…a titch neurotic at times, but always coming through with the perfect words to say... They will be great grandparents…we just won’t be able to share in all their good times. As Cathy would say …’WAAAAAAAAAAAA’…

Baby Cathy will grow up oblivious to what her mom went through and will be a well-rounded little girl. Thank you for this comic and you will be missed!

Don’t go! I grew up with Cathy and I will miss her. She was like a friend you called and talked for hours with, or went out for coffee with. Thank you Ms. Guisewite for giving us a daily companion many of us could relate to. Maybe you could update us every now and then on how it’s going with Cathy, Irving and the family?


Now THAT'S scary. Cathy G. could pull a Lynn J. and drag her characters back from the grave to torment us even more...

[Lynn Bodoni]

RE: backlash about cancelling comics: a few years ago one of my friends worked at the Dallas Morning News in the "arts" or whatever department. There was a big push to quietly cancel a bunch of strips.

According to my friend, out of all the comics they tried to quietly get rid of, the one for which they got the most angry letters was....

...this one (http://www.gocomics.com/loveis/2010/10/06/).

To the astonishment of everyone that worked there. She said it wasn't even close. I remember that time. I could not believe the amount of backlash for that crappy comic.

I enjoy a lot of comics in the DMN, but I don't understand why they will cancel a daily strip and keep running the Sunday strip. In particular, I wonder why they keep running Hi and Lois, Drabble, and Red and Rover. I'd have to look at the Sunday paper to figure out which others are Sunday only. Now, I LIKE The Piranha Club, and I wish that they'd pick up as a daily again.

[fiddlesticks]

The majority of people who read newspapers nowadays and who write letters to editors are older folks, who must enjoy the comfort of seeing the same Beetle Bailey, Hi and Lois, Marmaduke, etc. jokes over and over and over and over.

[Viridiana]

I used to love Cathy too (and yes, I am a woman). Then again, I don't have to relate perfectly to things to like them (I actually find it scary when people say things like that), I never assumed the author was saying all women acted exactly like her, I never looked to her as a role model, I openly acknowledged that she was corny, verbose and maladjusted, and I thought the fact that her eyeballs touched was cute (I thought a lot of the terrible representations of things were cute, actually).

However, I admit that virtually no Cathy comic I've read since they got married has been funny to me. I mostly liked the late 80s/early 90s period (back when I was reading the funnies every week).

[RickJay]

The majority of people who read newspapers nowadays and who write letters to editors are older folks...
Bingo.

Newspapers are skewing very, very old. I'm 38 and know very few people my age who regularly read the papers; I and maybe one or two other of my aquaintances. Almost everyone I know who's a regular newspaper reader is much older than I am.

That's anecdotal but it's trivially easy to Google up cites and studies that show newspaper readership skews old; most estimate 55-60 as the average age. Old people are disproportionately likely to resist change and to dislike anything edgy, threatening, or unusual; they want the comfort of another Hi & Lois cartoon that's pretty much the same as the last one. Jean Teasdale is, in a sense, unrealistic in that someone like her is much likelier to be 60, rather than forty and change, which I believe "Jean" now is.

"Cathy" is a perfect example of this because the underlying premise itself is so dated; Cathy (whether you're talking about the character or the cartoonist) is a almost-crazy neurotic who can't deal with being an independent woman juggling a job and a personal life. As the Comic Doctor points out, in 1976 this was still kind of a topical issue; it had been revolutionary in 1970 for TV to air a sitcom, the Mary Tyler Moore Show, about a woman whose focus was her career. In 1976 it was still the common assumption that women should get married at 21 and stay home with the kids. Today... I mean, I'm a single guy and if I met a woman who DIDN'T have a career she could handle, I'd think there was something wrong with her mentally. So old people can still relate to Cathy, whereas to most young people her neuroses seem almost alien.

[Lute Skywatcher]

I'm not averse to reading them online, but I know of no place online that will collect and collate them like the newspaper does. And no, I'm not going to bookmark all my favorite comic strips and then spend 30 minutes a day clicking bookmarks and links so I can read the comics. That is why newspapers are sometimes better than teh intranets. Also, newspapers are better for wrapping fish and lining bird cages.You have only to ask, and the SD shall deliver (even if you didn't ask in the first place, the SD shall deliver): The Houston Chronicle comics page (http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComics.mpl). You can even select a set to follow and create a single page you can bookmark with all your chosen comics on it.They also have one hell of an archive, at least for the color strips.

[Wheelz]

[QUOTE=Markxxx;12990756]If --big IF-- you want to have your jaw flop open at the sheer immature of the public, just read the comments under that last comic.Yes! I came here to point that out.

Yet another strip retires with more to write, but i suppose it is far better this way (leaving with more to say) than years of mediocre strips and a slowly declining readership…how many strips overstayed their welcome?

Pretty much the EXACT OPPOSITE of the consensus here. :p

[Sam A. Robrin]

Funny how apt it is that I won the T-shirt at karaoke this week for identifying Alice Cooper as the artist on "You and Me." First time I heard that song, I compared it to Eugene O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness as a blatant attempt to slyly, surreptitiously mock its target audience. These comments demonstrate that Cathy is in the same category.

[Snowboarder Bo]

I'm not averse to reading them online, but I know of no place online that will collect and collate them like the newspaper does. And no, I'm not going to bookmark all my favorite comic strips and then spend 30 minutes a day clicking bookmarks and links so I can read the comics. That is why newspapers are sometimes better than teh intranets. Also, newspapers are better for wrapping fish and lining bird cages.You have only to ask, and the SD shall deliver (even if you didn't ask in the first place, the SD shall deliver): The Houston Chronicle comics page (http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComics.mpl). You can even select a set to follow and create a single page you can bookmark with all your chosen comics on it.

You rock! The site isn't perfect, but it's the best I've yet seen for comics by far! And it has some of my favorites that the local papers stopped carrying years ago, so now I can read Boffo and Willie 'n Ethel and Non Sequitor and etc. and etc. again!

Thanks much, Bosstone!

[Wendell Wagner]

RickJay writes:

> As the Comic Doctor points out, in 1976 this was still kind of a topical issue; it
> had been revolutionary in 1970 for TV to air a sitcom, the Mary Tyler Moore
> Show, about a woman whose focus was her career. In 1976 it was still the
> common assumption that women should get married at 21 and stay home with
> the kids.

You exaggerate somewhat here. I graduated from high school in 1970. Cathy Guisewite is a little less than two years older than me. Maybe in 1955 it was standard to assume that a woman would be marrying soon after high school (or soon after college if she went to college) and having kids immediately, but it no longer was in 1970. In 1968, when (I assume) Guisewite graduated from high school, it was assumed that the vast majority of women would have a career, although they would probably take time off at some point for kids. A lot of women did have a focus on their career and expected to do very well in it. They knew that it would be an uphill climb all the way though. That's the real difference between when I or Cuisewite graduated from high school and now. A woman graduating from high school now doesn't usually think that it's going to be a big deal for her to have a career-focused life. In 1970 such a woman would know that she would have to do a lot of pushing past frontiers.

[wheresmymind]

Has this thread really gone this long discussing tired, unfunny comics that have been wearing the same lame jokes thin with repetition for years without any mention of Garfield?

Yes! Amazed I made it to the second page before someone had this sentiment. Jim Davis admitted decades ago that he's just cashing in on the character for as much $$$ as he possibly can. He doesn't even draw the cartoon anymore, he literally phones it in.

An ex-gf loved Garfield, which absolutely baffled me. I once purchased a Garfield book as part of a present for her. When the guy at the register sort of smirked at me I told him "no no, this is for my girlfriend. I hate Garfield. I still get teary-eyed when I read the last Calvin and Hobbes (...lets go exploring! *sniff*)." No lie, he looked me in the eye and said "Dude, I'd get another girlfriend." I didn't (well, not for a long time and not for that reason), but it did give me pause for a few seconds.

[digs]

Yeah, Garfield or Marmaduke (... and certainly Cathy!) would be a deal-breaker for me.


"Sorry, you're a smokin' hottie with a Tesla Roadster parked at your summer home in Marseille, but you just...snickered...at that cat!"

[DKW]

Fittingly, it ends with the long-suffering grandma's final wish (GRANDCHILD!!) granted. Classic good-night-drive-safely moment. Nothing special, really, but about the best way this could have ended.

Eh. Like I mentioned earlier, not great, but at least it provided a perspective, however warped, that was underrepresented in mainstream comics. I'd feel a lot better about this if there still were non-mainstream perspectives being offered to us. Honestly, by '03 the only one I could name would be The Boondocks, and that one's long passed.

I'm not surprised at all that there are readers who are going to miss this terribly. Like it or not, there are still women out there who related to this, and heck, it's nowhere near as anachronistic as Beetle Bailey or Blondie.

...

So...yeah.

...

And for the last time, it's "aack"! Two A's! TWO! It's Bill The Cat who says "ack"! Geez! :)

[Wheelz]

By the way, the ghost of Cathy is currently haunting over at Pearls Before Swine (http://comics.com/pearls_before_swine/2010-10-08/).

[Derleth]

That's anecdotal but it's trivially easy to Google up cites and studies that show newspaper readership skews old; most estimate 55-60 as the average age.I suppose nobody knows the answer to this, but does anyone here think they'll be able to transition to serving a younger audience when this one gets too old and dead to support them?

Anyway, what gets me is that Cathy is dying relatively young: Dennis the Menace and Beetle Bailey both date to the 1950s, Dick Tracy dates to the 1930s, and Snuffy Smith (officially Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, originally Barney Google) dates to 1919.* What's interesting about that 1919 date, aside from it being older than King Tut's back molar, is that American newspaper comics in their modern form only go back to the latter half of the 19th Century. Having a relic from that close to the birth of the medium still being produced and sold would be unimaginable in any other business.

*(Snuffy hisownself dates to 1934, during an otherwise mostly forgotten cultural obsession with 'hillbillies', and slowly took over the comic from there, his domination being complete from the 1950s onwards.)

So newspaper comics pages are a gerontocracy like unto the Soviet Politburo, and just about as resistant to change. What else is new? Well, don't expect them to ever improve. Comics artists are online now, making webcomics without worrying what some retired spackle-mixer in West Plains, MO is going to think about their next plot arc. It's true that 90% of them are crap, but multiply A Metric Shitload by 10% and you still end up with more than enough good ones to keep you up nights reading.

[jayjay]

So newspaper comics pages are a gerontocracy like unto the Soviet Politburo, and just about as resistant to change. What else is new? Well, don't expect them to ever improve. Comics artists are online now, making webcomics without worrying what some retired spackle-mixer in West Plains, MO is going to think about their next plot arc. It's true that 90% of them are crap, but multiply A Metric Shitload by 10% and you still end up with more than enough good ones to keep you up nights reading.

Agreed. The only reason I read newspaper comics anymore is so that I know what the Comics Curmudgeon commenters are talking about.

[anya marie]

Mary Worth needs to sleep with the fishes.

Piss up a rope Rex Morgan MD.

Dinette Set is gawdawful too, kill it with fire.

[Rilchiam]

Everyone hates Fusco Brothers, but I wonder: Do people who read the New Yorker hate J.C. Duffy's non-Fusco cartoons (http://www.newyorkerstore.com/2001/i-figure-if-i-dont-have-that-third-martini-then-the-terrorists-win/invt/121210/)? ETAAgain: The Onion beat him by five days.

[Biffy the Elephant Shrew]

Two months ago, I wrote:

The San Francisco Chronicle, which has reduced its Sunday comics "section" to a single four-panel sheet in recent years, still wastes valuable real estate on the Sunday Cathy. (They don't run the daily strip.) I'm hoping that they will use the freed-up space when Cathy ends for the Sunday Sherman's Lagoon, which currently runs weekdays only.

Didn't happen. They just increased the size of two other crappy strips, The Wizard of Id and Hagar the Horrible (which had previously been scrunched together side by side). Phooey.