The past couple of weeks, reading the funny pages in the New York Daily News newspaper has been more enjoyable than usual. The bottom slot on the third page has been “Fox Trot,” which…while not “Krazy Kat” or “The Gumps” caliber, is a passably enjoyable little domestic comic strip.
It seems ol’ lady Guisewaite has been taking herself a little break, and that nasty piece of unreadable shit “Cathy” has been out of the papers for a while. Would have been an excellent opportunity for the editors of the paper to say “Y’know what, Miss G? Why don’t you just not bother to send a new strip in after your holiday?”
But no, here’s the loathsome thing back again. In the “Fox Trot” slot, right under “Doonesbury.” All wimpy and whiny about bathing suit sizes, no less. Looking forward to a full week of incisive commentary about how men like to watch televised sporting events, how dogs like to be walked, how mothers are meddlesome old bitches, how high-fat ice cream tastes good, and other breaking news.
You know, I’ve always sort of liked Cathy. Ever since Bill The Cat took off with Outland (which was never as good as Bloom County was, same characters or no) I needed to get my "Ack!"s in somewhere.
Why is Family Circus still in the papers? If I ever meet that cartoonist in person I am going to hurt him. Grrrr…
Monday:
panel one: Cathy and her mother are eating dinner at a table set for four, wondering where Cathy’s father and her boyfriend have gone off to.
panel two: Cathy goes to the bedroom to borrow her mother’s earrings.
Panel three: Cathy finds her boyfriend and her father in a, um, compromising position. Aaaak!
Tuesday:
panel one: Distrought over the events of Monday, Cathy attempts to drown her sorrows in chocolate.
panel two: After eating several boxes, she realizes the chocolates are filled with liquor.
panel three: The neighbors find Cathy, naked and passed out, in their backyard after she has destroyed her home in a drunken rage. How embarrassing!
Wednesday:
panel one: Annoying little yippy dog eyes left over chocolate
panel two: Dog eats chocolate. Bad dog!
Panel three: Dog lapses into coma, dies due to alcohol and chocolate toxicity in canines. Poor Cathy, life is so hard.
Thursday:
panel one: To deal with her pain, Cathy tries on a swimsuit in the department store, but it’s too small because she’s a cellulite laden pig that eats too much chocolate and ice cream.
panel two: Disgusted, she puts on her clothes and leaves.
panel three: She has accidentally put on her clothes over the bikini. Mall security arrests her for shoplifting. Cathy is going to jail! Ain’t life just wacky?
Friday:
panel one: As the new blood in cell block “C”, Cathy is harrassed by Big Bertha, the baddest con in the big house.
panel two: Cathy snaps. She breaks both of Bertha’s arms while screaming “This big boned bitch ain’t gonna take anymore!”
panel three: Cathy says, “I guess there are advantages to being a high strung fat cow after all” as she walks off with Beatrice, her new ‘life partner’. Yay, Cathy!
Next week: The mother from “For Better or Worse” struggles with the dark voices telling her to embark on a prostitute killing spree.
Did you see the Family Circus cartoon where Billy had to go someplace and there were little black dashes all over the yard everywhere he went? God that was funny!
How about the one when Bill Keane was away and Billy drew the strip for him. Truly a classic!
It takes a lot for me to declare a comic strip “bad”. Even Family Circus has it’s good moments. But Cathy has done it. While I oppose killing people who haven’t killed anyone, the drawer of Cathy should be put to death.
I find it absolutely incredible that Cathy is written by a woman. I suspect it is actually the product of an incredibly twisted misogynistic male chauvinist out to make women look as defective as possible.
It was really nice to find Fox Trot in the comic section during Cathy’s hiatius, as opposed to the News’ usual habit of hiding it on some random page in the classified section (IF they remember to print it at all).
