Breaking Cat News by Georgia Dunn for March 20, 2024

That’s grim by any standards! I hope this can be turned around. It would be a travesty if my absolute favorite comic (which I post jokes in the chat all the time, you know which one) was dropped!

Mona and “C’est la Vie” are still out there.

Basically, Girls just wanna have funnies. WRITTEN BY WOMEN!

I stopped reading For Better of For Worse years ago. I like to think the comic was retired while it was at its peak (like Calvin and Hobbs was).

I love the seeing the Woman drawn as a child surrounded by very accurately drawn characters from other strips.

Yesterday, Sue Ellen said: “I hope we hear from the rest of the women — Sophie, Baba, Goldie, Lady Jane, Tillie, and Freddie. I hope Ora Zella is soaking this up like a sponge.” I want to repost that here, and to add that I hope we also hear from The Intruder, Nana, Beatrix’s Woman and Tommy & Sophie’s Woman, Old Mag, Mad Magazine, Homestyle, Mona, female raccoons, ferrets and snakes if any, Granny Bitty, and the Girl Scouts or whatever those adorable knitters were called!

(I was a Scout for two weeks, our leader was a ditz, we never did anything, and I quit and joined 4H instead, where I actually learned something.)

I thought Phoebe and Marigold were doing a good job holding up the girl cause. Have they been dropped from all newspapers now? I also noticed Agnes was dropped by our daily.

I swear, misogynists are gaining ground. Others are just apathetic to our diminution.

I can’t say she’s wrong but some retire and some strips just end. Some strips are well regarded but unprofitable. I’m not sure there’s a formula to guarantee success in the industry.

Why would you remove one of the best stripsrunning. Let alone two because of sexist nonsense.

Another strip from Georgia would also be welcome.

Phoebe and Her Unicorn is a wonderful strip which I read shortly after BCN. For Better or For Worse was a good strip as well. I like how Lynn Johnston wrapped up the story line by telling us what happened to all the Patterson family from all the generations (though learning Elly’s father passed away was sad). At first, I was a bit put off by Lizzie ending up with Anthony (I know some people on GoComics call him Blahthony, I used to but have had a change of heart over time) wishing she ended up with one of the other beaus she met in her travels but none of them worked out for her. In retrospect, Anthony was a single dad, a genuinely nice guy making the best out of the train wreck which his marriage had become (and ended) and he did care for Elizabeth a lot (always did) so all’s wells that ends well.

STOP THE PRESSES…

HEADLINE….

THE WOMAN WAS ONCE A GIRL….

For those wondering about the third (influence?) surrounding the young woman, that’s Nicole Hollander’s “Sylvia”. Nicole (or Sylvia) sometimes enjoyed working with a cat on her head.

As URLs are out in the comments here, I’ll just suggest searching for:

Nicole Hollander – Lambiek

Who is the character with dark hair? I recognize Elly and Cathy.

My NYC newspaper, carried all those strips, except for, Stella.

Well it DOES get a little old always talking about their weight. Try talking guns and tractor pulls.

I wonder if Go comics published a news paper of just comics , if there would be a market for it. Just a thought.

It’s strange, but most of the sexism I’ve ever personally experienced was in grade school, and back then it was mostly just boys or girls having cooties. That was back in the 90s. Now as an an adult I see other adults behaving like children with the whole “boys vs. girls” thing. It’s the 21st century, for Cat’s sake! What purpose does this serve? I’m honestly baffled.

(Though TBH I don’t particularly care whether I comic I love is drawn and written by a man, woman, or otherwise, but that’s not the point here, so don’t mind me. I’m also very tired and probably not making any sense, LOL.)

Newspapers don’t care about your va-jay-jay. All they care about is how good your comic is. Grow up and stop playing the victim.

And by “many newspapers,” read “all the local papers Gannett bought up and is actively squeezing to death by slashing local content and eliminating local printing and delivery.”

Ooh, crossover perhaps. I read Phoebe too!

That’s a great middle panel of the Woman-as-a-Girl and all the cartoons that inspired her. I enjoy it.

Thanks for giving Phoebe a shout-out. Lovely strip.

Hi Georgia. Is there some way to support these women artists beyond adding them to my comics I follow? This is just so enraging. I love your work, and have followed the Pattersons for years. Thanks for the recommendation on Phoebe and her unicorn. I just checked it out and it looks great.

I would love it if GoComics did a collection highlighting the comics from Women.

I’m not qualified to comment on print newspapers, I haven’t bought one since Paul died; however, I do hope Go Comics doesn’t start dropping strips because the authors are women.

The middle panel showing Georgia as a young girl is lovely, and the last panel is poignant.

Meanwhile, Back on the Nile

Elvis-Anum: Alright, so I’ve added the editorials to The Daily Scroll. Women cartoonists are under represented, and Leprechauns are not to be confused with trolls. Actually, it makes very good press.

Puckmosis: Just why do they call news articles press?

Beatrixia: It comes from a machine called the printing press that will be invented a few centuries from now.

Tabith-Isis: So why wait to the last minute? We have Burt-Ra, The Artisans, and The Builders. Not to mention the Luthiers, Mandy and Lynn. I bet they could design something that would allow us to print out tons of scrolls with very little effort.

Elvis: That would let me work more on transcribing the Elves’ scrolls.

Bea: And creating illustrations of beauty.

Puckmosis: Alright, let’s get started!

Trish O’Doyle: But first, tea and scones.

I actually head to Phoebe right after here

Hasn’t “For Better or For Worse” been in re-runs for a couple of decades?

I do notice a coupla possible trolls. Remember not to engage.

I never thought of Cathy as someone to look up to. More like an incarnation of a bunch of stereotypical behaviors I had no interest in imitating.

FBOFW was great. Cathy existed to be a hot mess. Blondie was the heart of her family. Then there were the innumerable “soap opera” comics, like Apartment 3G.

I married my high-school boyfriend after meeting other guys in my travels, and I thought Lizzie ending up with Anthony was perfect.

The dropped Phoebe! What are these manias thinking?

I think it’s all part of the gradual death of print media. I no longer read the sad little comics in the local paper. They dumped all the female-created strips (except FBFW, in reruns) and continue to run smarmy memorial strips by old (or more likely, long dead) men (Marmaduke, Dennis the Menace, Frank & Ernest, Ziggy, etc.) that I don’t find amusing or creative in the least. The entire paper is just going through the motions. Thank goodness for GoComics. And thank Cat for BCN. My cats and I read it daily.

Maybe the newspapers deserve to die.

I love Sylvia and Phoebe. I always thought Cathy was kind of stereotypical.

Texts from Mittens has a female writer and it is funny.

i love for better or worse too

Abysmal! Newspapers should allow women to express their artistic talent in unique styles rather than extract them.

Georgia, this strip is incredible! Your advocacy is deeply, deeply meaningful and the comics community owes you a debt of gratitude. May the BCN reporting team change their world, and ours, from the inside out!

The Girl’s heart-broken face, looking in vain for Phoebe!

Georgia, you gotta remember that a bunch of them got tired of it or retired. We miss the rerun strips that some used to have and they just STOPPED!

I’m so sorry. Newspapers are dying in the worst way possible. Deciding that everyone has to hate them.

Go comics has Sylvia. It’s still timely. I don’t know if that’s good or bad

Ordinary Bill is catty today, in a good way!

The lack of women comic strip writers leaves many of us hungry for something other than the harsh edges and sharp rhetoric that many male cartoonists seem to prefer. I have gone quite far afield to find my fix to the problem on places like Webtoons and Hiveworks. Not strictly comics, since many fall more into the graphic novel category, and most are not daily, but still some very good writing and artwork. And a surprisingly large percentage are created by women.

I read Phoebe and Her Unicorn back when it was called Heavenly Nostrils. :)

How about Mary Worth? Isn’t she a role model?

And of course Frog Applause by Teresa Burritt. It skews towards my sense of humor.

I have to mail this to a friend of mine from my days in SF. Trina Robbins. Look her up and read her work.

A fun collection of characters. Wish I could post a link to here on the relevant comics, but since GoComics no longer allows URLs in comments … : (

Breaking news….. ….. ….. ….. I still read For better or For Worse. It’s new to me! Right here on Go Comics!

Fun fact : the English name for April was Eastermonth

Weird and frightening . . . I wonder why.