A serious Valentine’s mystery for ‘Cathy’ fans

Before Destiny’s Child rhapsodized about independent women, before Charlie’s Angels took their stilettos to the big screen, before the glamorous sexual liberation of Carrie and company on “Sex and the City” -- before them all, there was Cathy.

But in what may be a blow -- or a blessing -- to single women everywhere, Cathy, the slightly neurotic star of the eponymous comic strip, may be getting hitched. After 27 years of leading Cathy through countless boxes of chocolates, mother-daughter spats, failed diets and swimsuit-induced panic attacks, cartoonist Cathy Guisewite just might nudge her semiautobiographical creation down the aisle.

“Valentine’s season is always the ultimatum season,” Guisewite said of the timing of the potential nuptials between Cathy and her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Irving. But will they or won’t they? Guisewite would reveal only that readers could expect a “question and an answer” on Saturday; the cartoonist considers Valentine’s Day a “time to clean out the emotional closets and see what works and what doesn’t.”

And these days, what works for Guisewite -- who draws much of the inspiration for the strip from her own life -- is being married. “I always really, really, really hated going on a date,” said the 53-year-old Studio City resident, who married screenwriter-director Chris Wilkinson six years ago. “I feel like I’m cheating on my husband if I write about Cathy going on a date or looking for a date,” she said.

Fans of “Cathy,” which blazed a trail with its 1976 debut as one of the first comic strips drawn by and centered around a woman, seem to be taking the character’s possible knot-tying in stride.

“It is a natural progression for Cathy,” said fan T.J. Barber, 27, a specialist for a defense contractor from Arlington, Va., who has discussed her enjoyment of the comic on her blog.

With the 10,000th “Cathy” strip looming this spring, some readers felt it was about time for the career-minded protagonist to settle down. “It would be kind of sad to have a character who was perpetually single but would never have the opportunity to say yes or no,” said Tina Oakland, 54, of Sherman Oaks, director of UCLA’s Center for Women and Men, which counsels students on gender issues. “It kind of fans the flames of hope for every woman.”

Not to mention the trove of new material the prospect of Cathy-as-bride offers.

“It’s a way of revitalizing the character and the strip,” said R.C. Harvey of Champaign, Ill., a cartoonist and comics historian who has written several books chronicling changes in newspapers’ funny pages. Drastic plot shifts have found success on the comics pages before, Harvey said, citing “Blondie” and “Beetle Bailey.”

Does the prospect of domestic bliss dilute “Cathy’s” feminist leanings?

No, answered Amy Richards, 34, an advice columnist for the New York City-based website, www.feminist.com. “There are many things in pop culture that celebrate singlehood; by that I think they’re celebrating freedom, a kind of independence, a kind of irreverence that people associate with singlehood,” Richards said. But “I don’t know many people that want to be single forever; it is a momentary state.”

Marital expectations for women -- in the funny pages and life -- have changed since Guisewite started drawing the strip over a generation ago, the cartoonist said. “In my day, we were too close to June Cleaver as the role model.... To get married was to give up any dreams of your own and cook pot roast.”

Now, women and their cartoon avatars are freer to remain single or to marry, because they “have many more real options” than they used to, she said.

“Cathy” loyalists are confident that potential wedding bells won’t also sound the death knell for the strip.

“She’s still going to be crazy,” Barber said. “There’s always going to be something for Cathy to complain about and be stressed over.”