Strip Search: Cathy
On alternating Thursdays, Jennifer M. Babcock reviews and recommends comic strips available in print and on the web.
by Jennifer M. Babcock
I have a confession to make. I get Cathy e-mailed to me every day.
I don’t subscribe to Cathy because I feel like it is relevant to my life or because I necessarily enjoy it. No, I’m a regular reader because ever since Cathy and Irving got engaged on Valentine’s Day, 2004, I’ve been curious if the strip’s character dynamics were going to change accordingly. After all, one of the founding concepts behind Cathy for over 25 years was the protagonist’s “singledom” and struggles as a working woman who can’t lay off the potato chips.
When the strip first appeared in 1976, women’s rights were being newly asserted at work and in relationships; Cathy’s character was supposed to reflect that generation’s working, single, independent women along with their fears, uncertainties, and challenges. The concept was quite novel for the time – how many mainstream newspaper comics in the 1970s addressed women’s rights or even had a single, working woman as the main, and in this case, title character?
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