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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?

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Speaker 1: From how Stuff Works dot com? Hello, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline. And as one

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Speaker 1: of our last now Summer Shorts episodes, we figured we

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Speaker 1: would talk about the Real Kathy Comic because I've noticed

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Speaker 1: that a we have started referring to Kathy Comics a lot,

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Speaker 1: because you say act, I have act moments. I feel

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Speaker 1: like I say blog, but that's a Liz Liz Lemon

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Speaker 1: says blurg, I say blog. So when I started watching

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Speaker 1: thirty Rock, I realized that I am Less Lemon. It's fine,

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Speaker 1: but Liz Lemon relates back to Kathy comics because she

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Speaker 1: even has a less Lemon moment where she goes chocolate

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Speaker 1: chocolate chocolo where she's clearly imitating Kathy comics. And I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna go ahead and tell listeners and you, Caroline right

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Speaker 1: now that this episode on the Real Kathy Comic is

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Speaker 1: appropriate because I'm having a Cathy kind of day. I've

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Speaker 1: got to confess I'm drinking a diet soda right now,

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Speaker 1: which I try not to do. I my my my muscles,

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Speaker 1: my arm muscles are sore because I exercised actually too much.

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Speaker 1: That's Kathy thing, isn't well. She's always doing some kind

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Speaker 1: of crazy aerobic routine. I am not wearing anything with

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Speaker 1: hearts on it that I know of. Are you holding

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Speaker 1: any cats? Um? I wish I were. It would make

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Speaker 1: things easier. I'm just feel a little a little Kathy. Yes,

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Speaker 1: you know where she She's sitting at her desk and

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Speaker 1: there's visible sweat. Yeah, oh no, praying on here. I'm

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Speaker 1: kind of hot today. I had on a robe earlier.

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Speaker 1: So the real Cathy comic is actually not me, folks.

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Speaker 1: It is a woman named Kathy, Guy's wife who was

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Speaker 1: quite a trailblazer. And we might not think of Kathy

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Speaker 1: the comic that we like to make fun of as

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Speaker 1: a trailblazer, but she was. Yeah, but Guy's wife, the

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Speaker 1: artist was. She actually has a very interesting she had.

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Speaker 1: She took an interesting route into comic strip making. She

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Speaker 1: she went to u of M University of Michigan and

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Speaker 1: graduated with a degree in English literature and was basically

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Speaker 1: her doodles were sort of just a little activity that

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Speaker 1: she draw on her letters. To her parents and everything,

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Speaker 1: and in nineteen six, at the encouragement of her mother slash, nagging, badgering, whatever,

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Speaker 1: Um ended up mailing some of her strips to Universal

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Speaker 1: Press Syndicate, but kept her day job. Universal Press Syndicate

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Speaker 1: got them. It was like, oh my god, you woman,

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Speaker 1: we want you. But she ended up keeping her day

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Speaker 1: job for four years and and stay it up till

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Speaker 1: three or four in the morning drawing these cartoons because

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Speaker 1: she said she didn't know how to draw, so it

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Speaker 1: took her a while. And Universal Press Syndicate liked this

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Speaker 1: concept of this Kathy comics so much because it's the

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Speaker 1: late seventies, the women's lib movement, it is in full swing,

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Speaker 1: and for the first time they were like, hey, you

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Speaker 1: know what, the the daily experience of women could be

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Speaker 1: something really interesting for us to look into. Because another

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Speaker 1: thing is Kathy was single. I mean, that's the hallmark

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Speaker 1: of the Kathy comic, you know, which is why some

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Speaker 1: people loved her and hated her because she was perpetually

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Speaker 1: single or you know, dealing with this kind of a

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Speaker 1: dolt of a boyfriend. And Kathy guys White herself was

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Speaker 1: single and in a rather embarrassing interview with Jane Polly.

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Speaker 1: Not embarrassing for Kathy Guys White, but embarrassing for Jane Polly.

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Speaker 1: It made me wonder if all women journalists were like

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Speaker 1: that in the seventies. Well, tell tell me about it. Well,

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Speaker 1: it was just awkward, Like Jane Paully was just like,

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Speaker 1: are you drunk? What's just suck? And then there was

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Speaker 1: a lot of like blonde hair flipping over her shoulder

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Speaker 1: and she was clutching this cardboard Kathy comic weirdness. I

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Speaker 1: don't know, the whole thing was weird, but anyway, they

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Speaker 1: touched on how she was a single woman, and I

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Speaker 1: think they were both twenty seven or twenty eight at

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Speaker 1: the time, and then I guess that was bordering on

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Speaker 1: spinstere at the time. Yea. Now, despite the awkwardness of

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Speaker 1: that interview you're talking about Kathy Guys, I did point

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Speaker 1: out the fact that what she was doing as a

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Speaker 1: syndicated female comic artist cartoonist was groundbreaking because she was

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Speaker 1: the first woman to ever do that. And when she

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Speaker 1: announced in two thousand and ten that she was retiring

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Speaker 1: the Kathy Comic strip, it had run for thirty four

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Speaker 1: years of daily strips in about daily newspapers um and

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Speaker 1: has spawned all of this merchandise on top of it. It

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Speaker 1: It was an empire that she had built off of,

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Speaker 1: off of gathy. But you know, she points out that

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Speaker 1: in that interview that cartoons are a field that women

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Speaker 1: haven't thought of, and she was right, the first, the

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Speaker 1: first syndicated female cartoonist. And she told Jane Paully that

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Speaker 1: she found herself actually floundering between the ideals of home

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Speaker 1: and motherhood and a new set of values of a stronger,

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Speaker 1: self sufficient woman. And so this is that whole, like

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Speaker 1: christ and said, women's lib movement being in full swing.

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Speaker 1: And a story from October on today dot Com from

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Speaker 1: The Today Show was talking about, you know, the end

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Speaker 1: of an era with this with this comic strip, and

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Speaker 1: the writer Stephanie Becker said that to her, to her generation,

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Speaker 1: it was absolutely groundbreaking and reflected the struggles that she

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Speaker 1: and her friends were going through at the time. Yes,

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Speaker 1: there's a quote where she says that Cathy's daily dose

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Speaker 1: of neurosis insecurity and anks pretty much reflected what we

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Speaker 1: were dealing with. Shoving our butts into tony bikinis, are

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Speaker 1: waiting for a boyfriend to call all or as a

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Speaker 1: result of known phone call trying to resist the temptation

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Speaker 1: of comfort food, to which I say, it's horrible. That

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Speaker 1: doesn't you know you don't want that to encapsulate, Like, Okay,

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Speaker 1: what is what is womanhood? It's being neurotic, hating your

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Speaker 1: body and waiting for a guy to call. Actually today

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Speaker 1: it would be waiting for him to text. Probably um.

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Speaker 1: So it's kind of funny that that Kathy is is

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Speaker 1: framed in this sense of Hey, it's in late seventies

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Speaker 1: and we're just single women living on lives for the

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Speaker 1: first time. But it's with this, you know, it's it's

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Speaker 1: a book ended with say, uh. The four guilt groups

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Speaker 1: that that Kathy encounters in the comic strip, which were

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Speaker 1: developed by Guy Swaiting, taken directly from her life. It's food,

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Speaker 1: you know, you gotta because actually the time, she was

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Speaker 1: working to drop fifty pounds, so she was doing the

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Speaker 1: whole thing of like exercising and trying to resist comfort food, food,

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Speaker 1: love of course, career and being the single daughter with

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Speaker 1: the harping mother, right. And she said that out of

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Speaker 1: everything in her comic strip, yes, it was obviously inspired

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Speaker 1: by her life, but she said that the thing that

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Speaker 1: was directly taken from her life experienced by experience was

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Speaker 1: the relationship with her mother, and she describes that as

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Speaker 1: a can of worms, and her mom was fine with it.

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Speaker 1: They've talked to her, interviewed Guy Swite's mom about it.

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Speaker 1: She's like, yeah, it's fine. I think she's just very

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Speaker 1: happy that her daughter was successful and took their advice

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Speaker 1: and sent those comics off to Universal Press Syndicate. But

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Speaker 1: maybe one of the most controversial moments that came during

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Speaker 1: the history of the Kathy comic occurred in two thousand

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Speaker 1: five when Kathy married Irving, her boyfriend of twenty eight years.

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Speaker 1: They were like the Ken and Barbie of the of

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Speaker 1: the cartoon world. I guess yeah. Well, prior to the wedding,

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Speaker 1: Guy's White portrayed Kathy as throwing out all of her

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Speaker 1: self help books, getting a grip and reading back over

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Speaker 1: her journal thin getting kind of grossed out at all

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Speaker 1: the self reflection and remembering all of her years of

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Speaker 1: you know, chocolate obsession and single lady cat cats single ladiness.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's the thing you saw, chocolate cats are married.

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Speaker 1: But this was also a reflection of guys Wite's own

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Speaker 1: romantic path because for a long time she didn't expect

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Speaker 1: to have kids, are married, she didn't really want it.

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Speaker 1: She adopted a daughter while she was still single and

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Speaker 1: then got married when she was forty seven years old.

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Speaker 1: And she talks about when she met her husband, who

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Speaker 1: I think she's now divorced from. Uh, but she met

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Speaker 1: him and he was like, well hello, Kathy, she and

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Speaker 1: she just turned him down. I mean, she was not

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Speaker 1: interested in romance at all. But apparently fate had other ideas. Well,

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Speaker 1: you know, there were a lot of people I guess,

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Speaker 1: I guess, I mean, I guess that's why she said

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Speaker 1: this quote. But apparently there were a lot of people

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Speaker 1: out there who, like, we're a little got their noses

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Speaker 1: out to join about Kathy getting married, the cartoon getting

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Speaker 1: married and guys White said that I know there are

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Speaker 1: single women out there who feel abandoned to them. I

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Speaker 1: would say, I'm sorry, I just have to move on

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Speaker 1: to this next phase already, because she herself had said,

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Speaker 1: you know, like we can always depend on Kathy to

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Speaker 1: be single, but apparently not so. And if you can't

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Speaker 1: depend on Kathy to be single, like can you depend

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Speaker 1: on right? But the Washington Post pointed out that, um, like,

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Speaker 1: what's the big deal about this? This is kind of

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Speaker 1: you know, why is everybody paying attention to this? And

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Speaker 1: in a pole they asked their readers how the readers

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Speaker 1: themselves felt about this whole Kathy marriage thing, and most

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Speaker 1: people were like, I don't care because it's not funny. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it wasn't funny. It wasn't relevant for the time anymore.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think for you and I were both

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Speaker 1: younger women were not of the Kathy generation, even though

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Speaker 1: we're still living on lives being single women back. But

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Speaker 1: it might not It probably doesn't resonate as much because well,

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Speaker 1: first of all, it's the there's a whole issue of

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Speaker 1: whether or not Cathy is a is some kind of

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Speaker 1: feminist trailblazer, because if you go to Mary Elizabeth Williams

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Speaker 1: over at Salon says, yeah, absolutely, you know, Kathy dealt

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Speaker 1: with the banal crap that most of us loves thanklessly

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Speaker 1: wrangle every day. So who cares you know she's trying

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Speaker 1: to fit into uh sweatsuit or bikini or freaking out

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Speaker 1: about something. She's a woman exactly. And Lindsay buyer Stein

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Speaker 1: over a Big Think totally rejects that she says that, yeah, sure,

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Speaker 1: Guy's White is a trailblazer for being the first syndicated

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Speaker 1: female cartoonist. Um, but there's She says, there's nothing feminist

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Speaker 1: or trailblazing about a character who spends thirty four years

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Speaker 1: on a diet, marking time at work while joylessly trawling

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Speaker 1: for a husband. She says the comic was personally inspiring

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Speaker 1: for her, if only because she really didn't want to

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Speaker 1: have a life that was completely defined by normative female anxieties.

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Speaker 1: Now she talks so on. I gotta say, I was

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Speaker 1: reading this commentary and this very strong dislike of the

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Speaker 1: idea of Cathy as a trailblazer because she spent so

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Speaker 1: long on a diet. Blah blah blah. I mean, do

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Speaker 1: we put that much stuck into Garfields and or Charlie

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Speaker 1: Brown just trying to find a football you can kick? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: now I realized the bigger picture that we're talking about women,

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Speaker 1: and that we're talking about this very specific one. But

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Speaker 1: that's exactly the same thought I had reading all this stuff.

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Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, you could argue that she's not a feminist.

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Speaker 1: I would, I'm not. I don't want to use the

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Speaker 1: word icon a feminist thing because of her constant concerns

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Speaker 1: about the superficial. But was she supposed to be No.

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Speaker 1: I think that, if anything, it was in the has

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Speaker 1: been pointed out in some of the kind of obituaries

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Speaker 1: for the Kathy comic that it's not so much about

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Speaker 1: the character, it's a it's a it's culturally relevant because

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Speaker 1: it was the first time that people were paying attention

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Speaker 1: to just the mundane, every day of the female experience,

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Speaker 1: and whether that experience matches up to yours or not

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Speaker 1: is sort of beside the point. Well, that's what Jessica

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Speaker 1: Wakeman at The Frisky pointed out. Um that, yeah, Cathy's annoying,

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Speaker 1: but she set a precedent in pop culture that the

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Speaker 1: lives of women, especially single career women, were worth exploring.

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Speaker 1: And we mentioned thirty Rock and Les Lemon earlier, but

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Speaker 1: Wakeman says that she also Kathy also paved the way

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Speaker 1: for Bridget Jones and Sex in the City, and while

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Speaker 1: she may not be cool enough to hang out with

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Speaker 1: the sex and the City girls, it's still that idea

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Speaker 1: of like the mundane, weird stuff that single women deal with.

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Speaker 1: Yeah and yeah, no, one were probably not aspiring to

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Speaker 1: become Bridget Jones or one of the Foursome insect to

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Speaker 1: the City, or even Liz Lemon, you know, like Liz

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Speaker 1: Lemon is wagadoo and we love her for it. But

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Speaker 1: it's also you also have to take into account, like

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Speaker 1: the satirical aspect of it. I don't think that Kathy

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Speaker 1: guys White was crafting a character for women to be,

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Speaker 1: you know, to as a role model for other women. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, comedians talk about random, boring stuff

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Speaker 1: and it's funny. They just talk about like aspects of

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Speaker 1: their lives. It's the same kind of thing. Just made

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Speaker 1: me not um funny. Yeah, she's not all that funny.

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Speaker 1: I never really tickled my tickled my funny. But I

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Speaker 1: wonder if anyone idea. I wonder if anyone's going to

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Speaker 1: do with Kathy what they did with Garfield, you know,

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Speaker 1: like Garfield without Garfield. Those comic strips. Have you seen

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Speaker 1: that they take old Garfield comic strips and remove Garfield

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Speaker 1: so it looks like John is just insane and talking

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Speaker 1: to himself. Or there's one where they leave Garfield in

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Speaker 1: but take out his bubbles, so John is just like

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Speaker 1: having an entire crazy conversation with a cat. It's just

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Speaker 1: gonna be talking to itself. Comic Kathy just sitting there,

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Speaker 1: frame by frame, sweating, with little sweat bullets flying off

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Speaker 1: of her. Well apparently the in the in the early strips,

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Speaker 1: she does have like a kookie, very seventies feminist friend, Andrea,

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Speaker 1: Andrea who's always like, you don't need no man. So anyway,

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Speaker 1: I think we've talked a lot about Kathy, and this

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Speaker 1: is supposed to be a short episode, so we need

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Speaker 1: to cut it off. But folks out there, what do

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Speaker 1: you think about Kathy comics? I mean, is it are

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Speaker 1: we putting? Do we put too much stock in these

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Speaker 1: kinds of things? Do you miss Kathy? Older women out there,

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Speaker 1: who do you remember those early Kathy comics? And was

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Speaker 1: it some kind of revolutionary thing? Yeah? Did the comics

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Speaker 1: are resonate with you at all? Or were you just

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Speaker 1: like I can't finn a bikini either, I don't want

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Speaker 1: to read this. Yeah, let us know your thoughts. Mom.

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Speaker 1: Stuff at Discovery dot com is where you can send

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Speaker 1: your letters, and we have a letter to share here,

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Speaker 1: Yes we do. It's about age gaps. This is from Emma.

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Speaker 1: She says she has some comments for us about her

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Speaker 1: own experience, and she says, in short, the Lifetime movie

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Speaker 1: network owes as a cut because half of their movies

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Speaker 1: have been inspired by my family. Smiley face. When I

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Speaker 1: was sixteen, my barely turned eighteen year old brother ran

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Speaker 1: off with our forty two year old next door neighbor.

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Speaker 1: Perhaps this wouldn't have been such a dramatic thing if

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Speaker 1: it were not a small town I had grown up in,

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Speaker 1: and had this woman not been our married mother to

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Speaker 1: our three friends, one of whom was still being homeschooled

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Speaker 1: by her, one of whom used to babysit my brother

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Speaker 1: and me, youth group leader, and my mom's best friend

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Speaker 1: who was about to celebrate her twenty five wedding anniversary.

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Speaker 1: You can also add to the list that she was

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Speaker 1: a substitute teacher at my high school, and she used

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Speaker 1: to change our diapers when we were kids. It may

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Speaker 1: come is no surprise that she and my mom were

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Speaker 1: no longer best friends, but this was back in and

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Speaker 1: what had at one time ripped apart to family says

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Speaker 1: now united them as they are still together and at

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Speaker 1: the old age of thirty three, I am a great

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Speaker 1: aunt several times over. He is still in his thirties

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Speaker 1: and she is in her sixties now, she's a year

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Speaker 1: older than my mom. But in all honesty, they are

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Speaker 1: an amazing couple and I can't imagine my life without

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Speaker 1: my amazing sister in law in it. I guess you

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Speaker 1: could say I'm grateful with the grateful for the heart

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Speaker 1: wrenching ripple effect their union created, because after both of

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Speaker 1: our families survived it, we have what we have today,

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Speaker 1: a delightfully dysfunctional, definitely unconventional, but very loving family. Wow. Wow,

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Speaker 1: that's thank you, Thank you for that story. Wow. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you can send your stories are way. Mom Stuff at

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Speaker 1: discovery dot com is where you can send us a letter,

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Speaker 1: or you can find us on Facebook, follow us on

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Speaker 1: Twitter at mom Stuff podcast, and you can see what

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Speaker 1: we're writing during the week over on our website. It's

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com for more on this and

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Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot

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