I don't read the comic strip Cathy. I'm not really in the target demographic, so that should not be surprising in the least. I just can't identify with the troubles of buying a swimsuit or any other situation that would make one go "AAACK!" Even if Cathy is a cultural blind spot, the news that it is ending after 34 years has given me something I wasn't expecting, a great deal of respect for strip creator Cathy Guisewite.
It's not that I want Cathy to end. Just because I don't read the strip does not mean I wish bad things on it. Clearly, it has fans somewhere, and I'm sure a lot of people can identify with Cathy in some way. I can admit that the strips, like the bikinis with comically large price tags that are sometimes featured, are not for me. Guisewite's strip has been an important part of her life, and possibly an important part of the lives of many others.
Which is why I respect Guisewite, incidentally. From beginning to end, this is her strip. It has her name on the box, she's been the writer and artist, and she is ending it because she feels it's time for the strip to go, and for her to spend more time with her family. Cathy ends because Guisewite believes it's time. This seems like something minor, but in the world of comics, it's a rarity.
If you look at the comics page, the majority of strips are not written or drawn by their original creators. Blondie, for example, has been in print for 75 years. B.C. kept going even after the creator died. Family Circus is written by the kids that inspired it. While sometimes it can lead to surprising changes -- Francesco Marciuliano's Sally Forth is much more delightfully odd than the original writer - most of the time it leads to a phenomenon known as a zombie strip. The jokes become stale, the art gets stuck in a rut, and the overall comic is lifeless. They shuffle along the page, not knowing that they are dead.
Even some strips where the original creator is involved see their strips become a zombie. Lynn Johnston was originally going to stop writing For Better or For Worse years ago, but decided that she just couldn't stop. She rebooted, leading to a once vibrant and beloved comic being a shadow of its former self. Her initial instinct that it was time to leave was right, but she just couldn't do it, proof that what Guisewite is doing is incredibly difficult.
She could easily ride the royalty train after handing the reins over to another writer. She could just as easily decide that she just can't stop writing the comic. Even if ending it is the right thing to do, ending something that you have been doing for the majority of your life cannot be easy by any stretch of the imagination. Guisewite deserves respect because she is both doing something that makes sense for her and for the creation. She recognizes that if she wants to stop creating Cathy, Cathy has to end, and that's the right choice to make.
While Cathy fans will mourn the strip, they should be happy that it's ending this way, with the creator deciding that it's time. While it's hard to see something you like disappear, it's just as difficult to watch it become a stale, and if Guisewite had decided to hand over the reins to someone else, that's likely what would happen. Cathy, both the strip and the woman, ends with integrity.
