Cathy Classics by Cathy Guisewite for October 03, 2010

Congratulations, Cathy! Thank you to the real Cathy for sharing “Cathy” and her life with us all!

Thank you, Ms. Guisewite.

Well done.

I guess this is it, then. Funny, but a pregnant Cathy with the parents and in-laws would have been hilarious.

ALRIGHT! Best wishes Cathy! Take care!

Outstanding! Great way to wrap things up! Thanks.

So sad to lose Cathy, but I love the ending. It’s perfect! Best to the real Cathy!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!

That should be enough material for another thirty years!

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

Irving, you had the last word to end this strip.

What a great ending!!! thank you so much for all this wonderful years Mrs. Guisewite. Wouldn’t it be nice to see what happens with mini-cathy?? We love you Cathy, Irving, Mom, Dad, Electra and all of you!!!! You may deserve a baby-pause, but please come back!!!We’ll be waiting for you! Greetings from Germany.

I just KNEW IT! Got me into tears! I KNOW how mother feels as I felt the same way when I learn that my son’s wife expecting! I was thrilled. I will miss “Cathy” strips as I enjoyed every day for so many years since Cathy came out. So long and will miss you!

Have truly enjoyed Cathy all these years! Thanks for wonderful work and great plots. Cathy, you will be missed.

Be good to Irving, Cathy, he’s trying SO hard. God bless all of you. (Does your mother happen to buy her clothes at the same shop as Norman Bates’ mother?) Your mom is going to have so much fun suffocating your new little one!

I’ll miss you, Cathy! We were in our 20’s and 30’s together, out there forging our careers together under the glass ceiling! Why are you not in your 50’s now, you whippersnapper?!

Lots of love!

congrats cathy. a nice goodbye.

Ah! The old ‘circle of life’ cliche. I love it!! I was sure it was going to end this way, and I wish it would never end. I would love to see what happens next. Thanks for everything, Cathy! You’ll be greatly missed.

sniff

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. I grew into womanhood reading Cathy and could relate to her so much. She came out of the age when women were just becoming liberated and leaves her legacy with the next generation of women who have always lived in times were everyone should be considered equal (I know it doesn’t always happen though). We take so much for granted and it’s women like both Cathy’s who we have to thank for paving the way.

Thank you!

I will miss seeing Cathy everyday.

Ditto to all of the above comments.

Somehow I knew that this was how it was going to conclude.

Gosh, it really seems like this just opened up a whole new world of material. Competing grandparents and jealous dogs would have been hilarious. I’ll miss Cathy.

This strip started when I was twenty. And as I (and the rest of us) go on, Cathy fades into comic strip history like that of Calvin And Hobbs, The Big Top, Out Of The Gene Poll/Single And Looking, Opus, Annie, and State Of The Union. We’ll miss you, Cathy…we’ll miss you all. Farewell. -Josh1360

Bravo, Ms. Guisewite! What a wonderful strip. I have thoroughly enjoyed Cathy over the years, and you have done a fantastic job illustrating all of the struggles and emotions that we’ve gone through. 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!

I agree that it really doesn’t make sense to end the strip and then decide after soooooo long to finally evolve the characters. I sense that Ms. G is not really going to retire and that this was all a massive PR stunt to bring media attention to her strip.

Keep watching the funny pages, people. This ain’t gonna be over yet. I predict a letter-writing campaign to Ms.G. and a continuation of the storyline after a bit of a break…

On a personal note, I’d like to know how two people in so much massive debt can even afford the medical costs of even having a baby. Maybe Ms.G. would have them win the lotto. Not a million dollars, but just enough to pay off their debts and restart? Any comments?

But … Hey! … There could be a book in this!

Even though there probably would be another 30 years of humor to mine with Cathy and Irving trying to raise a baby, the strip would eventually become yet another Hi and Lois, or similar strip….

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?

Thanks for the memories Ms G…

Aunt Grandma turning into an actual Grandma! yea! such a perfect ending, haha. There’s enough material here for another 30 years. (one can always dream…)

Farewell, thanks for everything !

Love the baby “AACK”!! Know how Cathy’s mom feels. Our granddaughter is a tiny bundle of joy! And Irving’s comment is priceless! And so in tune with the times. Good luck to both the real and the cartoon Cathy. Enjoy your retirement!

Brava, Ms G - leave us begging for more, but know that the strip ended in a satisfactory manner for most everyone here. I’d rather have this than to see it slowly dying a long and painful end.

Kathy will be missed, but more than that, she will always be loved.

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. I moved abroad twenty years ago and after about five years I missed my dose of Cathy and purchased all the Cathy book collections to get caught up. Then came GoComics and I could follow her and Irving every day. Heaven for me. Truly. 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?

There’s nothing I can add to this except that in some ways, Cathy has become a friend. Thanks for the fun! Cathy & Irving & grandparents, enjoy that little bundle of joy!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!

Perfect ending, Ms G, if not unexpected. Enjoy your newfound free time. On a selfish note, I hope you get bored and go back to work. Give Lynn Johnston a call. ;-)

I know that this is the perfect place to end, but it would have been a hoot to see Cathy and Irving raising a child. Thanks Ms. G. for many yeas of enjoyment of Cathy. It would be nice now, if they went back to day one and started replaying so we could all reminisce.

Snif

Best strip ever.

I grew up to this comic! Nice ending though. I really wish we could see the baby ride though. You will be missed! Best of luck to you in all you do!

I think her best material could have been in following Cathy’s pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, and raising her daughter. It’s a pity she chose to end with the start of such excellent strip material :-(

knew it !! thanks Mz.CG for years of chuckles…. ps. cute parting aack…

She’ll be back.

AAAACK! THANK YOU!!!!

I was hoping for adoption, too, like Guisewite did in real life.

I don’t know how I will handle the CATHY withdrawal symptoms, tomorrow.

This ending is not really an ending to Cathy’s story, is it? Guisewite has left it so that she could come back and pick up the storyline when retirement gets to her.

We’ll miss you so very much! With appreciation to Cathy Guisewite for all these years of Cathy. As we have added years and pounds she always understood – and made us laugh through it all. we wish you happiness and a joyfully busy retirement.

Cathy can’t go … I still don’t understand shoe obsessions!

The shoes and the clothing and accessories. That part of the strip did not strike me as funny but I’m a guy. Maybe this was a chick strip, (not that kind of chick strip) but it was funnier for women. It’s always sad to see strips retire, Calvin and Hobbes comes to mind. Peanuts was another that retired. I wonder if the humor and jokes used in new strips will be difficult to understand for long time readers of comic strips. I mean the new cartoonists are of a different generation and have been brought up in a different social environment. For better or for worse was restarted, would Cathy be able to be restarted too or would the jokes be out of date?

Wow…hard to believe it’s all over.

What a great ending though…..

Wish my Mom was around to see Cathy finally have a “real” baby.

Ta Ta

Thanks Cathy - both the author and the character. My own characters and I wish you the best in all your future endeavors. And I loved the strip today!

Y E S !!!!

How ironic that the best Kathy strip ever drawn\written was the last one. (Well, the ring\proposal strips were great too - Oh heck, they were all great.)

Mz. G, I do ask a favor - could you occasionally work on a book that at least covers the early years of the baby - from the point in time of this strip on?

Only in your spare time, mind you… if you ever have any…

And thanx for all of these years - I was in at the beginning and I’m here at the end…

Fabulous, simply fabulous!

Wow. So many of us here online called this ending. It opens the door for a lot more, but it’s really happy, too.

Thank you, Ms. G., for 34 wonderful years of Cathy. The strip has been a joy to read, and always will be.

Thank Cathy for many years of fun! Aaack!

For her Mother’s sake, I glad this is how the series ends. And I can’t read it clearly, but I assume the baby is saying ‘Aaaack’.

Bye, Cathy. Sob.

For those of you who say “it’s too risky to become a mother at HER age:”

More and more women are becoming first-time mothers at older and older ages. I’m not saying that it is risk-free; however, newer studies are showing that it’s not as risky as people popularly believe, and it is becoming less so as health and nutrition, prenatal care and awareness increase.

I sense a book deal in the works…

I KNEW Cathy wouldn’t leave the strip without some kind of reference to her real-life daughter, Ivy. Congrats to Cathy the cartoon character, on her anticipated bundle of joy… and many thanks to Cathy G. for all the years of wonderful entertainment. You will both be missed.

Thanks Ms. G for a great cartoon.

Best of luck in your retirement.

i’m leaking!

thank you – a nice ending that leaves you wanting more.

Not Fair, I subscribed to GoComics, not only for my love of Comics, but especially my love of CATHY COMICS. I was furious when my newspaper dropped her, almost treatened to drop the newspaper. LOVED HER WEDDING, and was really looking forward to be a Virtual Auntie to Her and Irving’s Baby. MS. G. DON’T DO THIS TO US, KEEP CATHY COMING ON I want her to grow old with us, Don’t do to us what FOR BETTER OR WORSE did to us avid Comic Addicts!!!!!

Farewell, Cathy. See you around the toy store.

…Dude, was I wrong. XD

Thank you for so many wonderful years. You have affected my life in so many positive ways.

So, is she really pregnant, or not? Are she and Irving still sitting on the couch daydreaming, or is this a timeskip?

Finally! All the best!

I’ll miss you :(

Get some rest, Cathy, and come back!! Can’t let a good thing go…..

Cathy, my 81-year-old mother will never forget your wise advice: “When all else fails, use vinegar!” Thank you for the years of entertainment - and good advice!

Perfect ending :)

I thought yesterday was your last day. Now you have to stay and wait this one out.

I like the cat in the psychiatrist booth. 5 Cents Please.

Hard to imagine life without Cathy! I’d love to be friends with the real Cathy. If your persona in the strip is anything like you, you’re a wonderful person! Have a beautiful retirement.

It is soooo sad to see the comic I consider to be the best ever go, but it is a sweet ending – with everyone happy but the fans (and I suspect the artist). I do appreciate the need for a break after 34 years, but I can only wish for you what has happened to me — a failed retirement – and hope that you will come back and keep us informed as to Cathy’s new status as a parent.

I would also like to thank Cathy Guisewite for the personalized drawing she did for me several years ago ((2007). My college anthropology students were assigned to interview an “elder” and since she babysat for Cathy’s sister’s children, she asked Cathy’s mother if she would agree to be interviewed. I never got a chance to thank the student (who handed the drawing to me and dashed out of the classroom after she turned in her final quiz), and I never properly thanked Cathy either – so please accept my belated thank you to all involved for something I will always treasure.

I have loved the strip, have loved the fact that it was so very true to life, loved the irony in conjunction with the “women’s movement,” and loved the fact that the artist has poured so very much of herself into her art. Happy Future to Cathy Guisewite!!

Thanks for all the laughs, angst, obsessiveness, silliness and love.

You’ve been a fave from the beginning. I retired after 34 years too…..

G’bye Cathy!

I applaud Cathy Guisewite’s decision to forego endless reruns and to free up her newspaper space to give another cartoonist a shot at the success she had. Best wishes to her.

I KNEW IT!! I KNEW IT!! I knew the last strip was going to be Cathy becoming pregnant. I agree with other posters that there would have been 30 more years of material.

Cathy, you’ve been hilarious for so long. We’re sad to see you go. But hopeful, now that Cathy Junior could always re-emerge!

Thank YOU for all the years! I’m sad to say goodbye.

Cathy has been part of my life for so long that I can’t imagine the comics without her. Or life without her, really. My mother used to tell me that I reminded her of Cathy. (My best friend’s name is even Charlene!)

I will miss her more than words can say. And Cathy Guisewite will always be a hero of mine…one of my most prized possessions is the personalized Cathy drawing she sent me in response to a fan letter I sent her back in 1988. It has had a place of honor in every home I’ve lived in since then.

My Cathy books (going back to the very first one) will have to give me my Cathy fix now.

Farewell, Cathy. I love you.

I have related with Cathy since the strip has begun and you will be truly missed. If you change your mind we won’t be against it!

The perfect Cathy irony - with the ending there is beginning. AACK !! We’ll miss this one a lot.

I enjoyed your comic strip from it’s beginning. Thank you! This is from today’s (Oct 3) Ballard Street - a tribute to you indeed!

http://www.gocomics.com/ballardstreet

Sell your strip rights to support that baby….ha

Thanks for the humor over the years!

Cathy and Calvin and Hobbs are my two all time favorites!!! May they rest in peace.

Hey, who knows…maybe in ten years, we’ll see “Daughter of Cathy”.

“So long, it’s been good to know ya.”

Maybe now that Cathy is ended, a new strip will start–Cathy’s Girl!

Have been a fan of “Cathy” since the very beginning and in my younger days, I saw so much of myself in her adventures. I will truly miss Cathy and all of her supporting cast. I just hope that Ms. Guisewite will be kind enough to do a couple of books so we can see what happens with Cathy and Irving now that they’re parents!

Say it ain’t so! Well, looks like I’ll be canceling my subscription to gocomics as this is the only reason for my subscription (it is the reason I quit two daily papers when they dumped the strip).

The comics director for one paper told me that with Cathy getting married, the strip was basically over. And he was wrong…so please, don’t leave us now!

Congratulations Cathy, and so long! Another great era has ended.

Little Cathy (aack) has big shoes to fill.

(Not that you have big feet or anything!)

Perfect ending/Perfect beginning, and technological too. Thank you for all the laughs and all the tears.

I’ll miss you, Cathy. Thanks for all the wonderful years of laughs.

Congratulations, Cathy and Irving! This is such a bittersweet ending. I feel like i am losing a good friend. I have so enjoyed being a part of your lives. To the “real” Cathy, your take on pop culture always brighten my day. You will be missed.

I guess everything that can be said, has been said. Good luck Cathy as you forge new paths, the past 25 years have been a joy and a privilege, and for that you have our gratitude. I hope you and Steven Pastis patch things up, you two are two of my favorite cartoonists, it would be a shame to stay at odds.

I have to say that seeing this comic strip end is very sad for me. A few years ago my aunt, also named Kathy (but with a “K”) passed away at a young age from a very quick heart attack in the middle of the night. Cathy was always her favorite comic and she read it every day. I myself have only read it occassionally until my aunt had passed. That was when I had started reading it very frequently because it helped me to keep her memory alive. Seeing Cathy end is like saying goodbye to my Aunt all over again. I wish the cartoonist Cathy a wonderful retirement and I thank her for many years of comfort after my aunt’s passing. Thank you Cathy and may God bless you as he has our family with having my Aunt Kathy be a part of it as your Cathy has also been.

Congratulations on a great run! Perfect ending

Farewell, Cathy. We’ll miss you! And congrats! Way to go out in style!!!

Thank you very much for the great strips. Mrs. Guisewite. I’ve loved them all!

Farewell Cathy, I’ll miss reading about your family and adventures. Ms. Guisewite - thank you so much for all the pleasure that reading your strip has given me all these years. Best wishes for whatever your future brings.

Good bye and good luck. Thanks for 34 years of wonderful comic strips.

congrats are farewell - would have liked to have seen the baby earlier though

Awwww.

Thank you for years of insight into how other women manage. Some of your strips are in my permanent Save collection, next to Snoopy saying he’s going stay Upstairs with Miss Georgina.

Love this ending. Thank you, Ms. Guisewite. And Cathy leaves me now with hope for myself too! ;)

But she’s not actually pregnant, is she? Aren’t she and Irving on the couch daydreaming?

Loved the ending but would have preferred to find out how Cathy and company would have handled pregnancy and parenthood. Please come back in the future and let us know.PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’ve enjoyed this strip over the years, when I was able to get it. Banana slug raises a good point. They were sitting on the sofa “daydreaming”. It was funny and typical Cathy and Irving that even in a dream, they had trouble getting out of the driveway. One strip had the heading “Next spring”. All was green when they got to mom and dad’s. Could this be a clue? Or just leave us wondering.

thanks for all these wonderful memories, i will miss my daily dose of cathy’s idiosyncrasies…and i will ever think of the this character as i endure my own debacles in the dressing room.

You’re till looking great. Best wishes for many more creative years, Cathy Guisewite! “http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/aug/11/cathy-comic-strip-ending-after-34-years/entertainment-books/”

the world can rest easy now. Another “Cathy” will be alive and ready to (re)act soon!!

Cathy, how can you leave us when your life is just starting? We waited for this moment for 35 years, to see you finally married and having kids. NOW YOU LEAVE US? C’mon! Take a break and then get back to work. We’ll be waiting.

There is an old show business axiom, “Always Leave them wanting more.”

You ended the strip in the manner I hoped you would, and so they will all think of you and “wanting more.”

Bless you for the years given and good luck to you in the future.

Thank you Cathy, We’ll miss you.

“Cathy”, by Cathy G, will be missed. Thanks for the journey. Most of all, thanks for the chuckles. I felt akin to “Cathy”, many times; especially, the shopping, fashion, office files, technology experiences…OMGosh, could never forget the cataog of photos-storage of vacation trips! To: “Cathy’s Mom/G-Ma 2-B…it’s an exhilarating experience…Would like 2-know ‘your take’, on ‘grandparenting’! Farewell 2 “Gramps 2-B”, and Dad-2-B, Irving! “Cathy”…hope your maternity jeans will fit! LOL…it’s your turn!

Cathy always spoke for the strong, independent woman in all of us. I will miss her obsession with her weight, chocolate, and bathing suits. Thank you for making us make fun of ourselves.

I am deeply saddened. First it was “Calvin & Hobbes,” then “For Better or For Worse” and now “Cathy.” I’ve been sharing these family’s joys and sorrows, heartaches and triumphs for decades. I truly feel as though Cathy is the older sister I never had (although the younger one I did have made up for it). I wish Cathy Guisewite all the joy she and her family can find in her well-deserved retirement. You’ve brought more smiles and chuckles to this guy’s life than you can ever imagine. God Bless you!!

so everyone who said she would be pregnant was right! I wasn’t quite sure if CG would dare… but I guess it’s not too dangerous, because she won’t have to follow up on this amazing ending!!

Cathy, I’ll miss you. I stopped reading you at one point because it was repetitive… but then I realized that I missed you. The whole joke/point is, it’s hard to stop repeating bad habits - you do them over and over. And everyone has bad habits that they would like to stop. So I identified with her, altho my bad habits are not identical to hers. So I went back to reading Cathy. And I have enjoyed every minute of it.

Yes indeed, Irving has the last word, and it’s absolutely perfect - completely in character for him - and I know some men who would say exactly that!

@webspider, you wonder how they can afford to have a baby; but if the only people who had children were the ones who could really afford it, we would have no problem with over-population. From the people I know, I see that they make it work, somehow. How many people do you think can afford it now?

Come to think of it, what does “really afford” mean, anyway? That could be the topic of a very long discussion.

@plaidwolf; They do say that the best time to leave a party is when it’s at its height, not after it has started winding down. That makes people more likely to have a positive image of you, and want you to come back next time. So in that sense, she is leaving at the best time - just when the story is opening up to all kinds of new possibilities.

Should we print today’s cartoon, seal it in plastic, and frame it in solid gold? Well… no, that’s not Cathy’s style. It wouldn’t suit her.

(quietly, so no one will hear) …sniff…

@xxxn, you don’t understand the original goals of the women’s movement. Don’t feel bad; most people nowadays don’t either. As a teacher, I can’t resist enlightening you:

It was to allow women to have a choice - have babies, have a career, or have some combination of the two. And raising children was not supposed to be inferior to having a career.

Actually, you don’t know what Cathy is going to do about this, do you? She didn’t say she’s going to quit her job and stay home. You just don’t know!

As an aside, recently I discovered that the word feminist is now taken to mean someone who hates men!!! It was originally supposed to mean power, freedom of choice, independence, individuality for women. Well - like everything else - it’s a case of two steps forward, one step back…

You call it sexist for her to have a baby. I say you’re being sexist by not wanting her to have a free choice.

You Cathy readers should join us over at C’est La Vie.

SWEET!!

Thank you for such dedication to a truthful storyline of “our own lives” as lived through Cathy! May God bless you on a new journey! And know that if you ever decide to return to the comic world with the bundle of joy, we will all be here waiting! :)

And now we know why her jeans were too tight in the strip last week!

I’m actually glad she didn’t do the baby storyline before now. It’s a perfect way to wrap things up. Nicely done.

Bye, bye Cathy and thanks for the memories. Sad ending though, I would love to see Cathy’s new adventures as a mom.

Fantastic. Thank you for all the years of fun. God Bless you.

Ahh,… Congratulations!

I got all choked up! : )

I am going to miss Cathy. This was the appropriate ending, even though I never thought they should have kids. I’m glad we don’t have to watch it though. : )

They’re missing a bunch of people in the goodbye panel at the top, and I didn’t notice the teddy bear at the beginning the first time I looked.

Cathy, thanks for the years of smiles. I also wish we could see Cathy and Irving grow with the little Cathy but sometimes you just have to accept that things end. It’s sad but you will be a fond memory.

I’m with Avolunteer and JR, who loved that the baby thinks “aack”! In very small, red letters (since everything in utero is small and red?). Funny, but it’s also meaningful right now.

And I’ve been enlightened over the years by Irving, who gave me hope that one can survive life with a strong woman. Kudos to Cathy G for grasping a bit the male side of the balance, too.

The baby is living proof that it’s time for the strip to close. Yes, some fans will crave repeated visits to the archives, but we don’t really need new strips, do we? From its first aack, the next generation will surely repeat, the way so many families always seem to do (though many trademark traits do seem to skip a generation).

There’s nothing wrong with the fact that every good story has a beginning, a middle and an end. If we’ve enjoyed all three out of three, we’re done and we can declare it a triumph. Congratulations to its creator!

Thanks for letting a man to know something of what to expect with a woman. Genuinely funny and entertaining! I’ll miss Cathy. Thanks, Ms. Guisewite.

Ms. Guisewite, I’ve loved Cathy since the beginning, we’ve grown up together. Thanks for years of laughter …and commentary on ridiculous fashion trends! Upcoming bathing suit seasons will never be the same. And a Cathy book about impending motherhood would be most welcome… (hint, hint)

oh my gosh its so sad to see cathy end especially bcuz we wont get to see the baby get raised :)

Just the best, most perfect ending for me! Thanks for so many years of making me feel my own neuroses was “the norm” :)

Cathy, The Bangor paper dropped both you and Ziggy at the same time. I guess I’m, out of step here, but these were my favorites! Thanks for so much entertainment, Rob Palmer (usrepeaters.org)

Cathy, The Bangor paper dropped both you and Ziggy at the same time. I guess I’m, out of step here, but these were my favorites! Thanks for so much entertainment, Rob Palmer (usrepeaters.org)

how can she stop there?

i agree ehanson how i love cathy and im so sad to see her go bye cathy i will miss u.

i just wish i could see how the baby will turn out

This is amazing!

Bye, Cath.

This is wonderful. But why did you have to end the series here? Bummer.

This legit made me tear up in may 1 2017 ! Still stuntin

The comic may be over, but these characters will live on in our hearts.

To be honest, I kind of wanted to see what Cathy would be like pregnant.

goodbye Cathy…