Kathleen Louise Worley (March 16, 1958 – June 6, 2004) was an American comic book writer, best known for her work on '' Omaha the Cat Dancer'', a sexually explicit anthropomorphic animal comic book series about a female stripper. Worley was also a musician, and a writer and performer for the science fiction comedy

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Biography

Worley as born in Bellville, Illinois on March 16, 1958. After moving to

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

, Minnesota in the 1970s, she became one of the early contributors the

there. While in the process of divorcing from her husband, she and cartoonist and musician Reed Waller began a romantic and professional relationship. Moving in together, they wrote songs and performed, both as a duet and with local bands, as well as being popular figures at Minicon and other

science fiction convention Science fiction conventions are gatherings of fans of the speculative fiction genre, science fiction. Historically, science fiction conventions had focused primarily on literature, but the purview of many extends to such other avenues of expre ...

s. In the mid 1980s, Waller and Worley began collaborating on ''Omaha the Cat Dancer'', which had originated as a strip by Waller in the local fanzine ''Vootie'', before evolving into a nationally distributed

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

series published by

Kitchen Sink Press Kitchen Sink Press was a comic book publishing company founded by Denis Kitchen in 1970. Kitchen Sink Press was a pioneering publisher of underground comics, and was also responsible for numerous republications of classic comic strips in hard ...

. Four pages into issue #2, Waller suffered

writer's block Writer's block is a condition, primarily associated with writing, in which an author is either unable to produce new work or experiences a creative slowdown. Mike Rose found that this creative stall is not a result of commitment problems or th ...

, and Worley offered "a few tentative suggestions about directions for the storyline, new characters, anything she could think of that might help...." At his invitation, she became the series' writer, enhancing its characterization and themes. In 1988, Waller identified them both as bisexual in the letters column of the series. ''Omaha'' went on hiatus when Worley and Waller were both injured in a car accident; this hiatus was greatly extended when they had an acrimonious parting, which made their attempts at working together difficult. During this time, Worley wrote comics for various publishers, including ''Mulkon Empire'' for

Tekno Comix Tekno Comix was an American publishing company that produced comic books from 1995 to 1997. History The company was founded by Laurie Silvers and Mitchell Rubenstein as a division of their publicly traded company, Big Entertainment. Tekno Comix ...

, ''

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'' for Dark Horse, ''Roger Rabbit'' for

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, and a "Year One" annual issue of ''

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''. She married comic book writer Jim Vance, with whom she moved to

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, and had a son and daughter. In 2002, she and Waller reached a deal with

Fantagraphics Fantagraphics (previously Fantagraphics Books) is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, manga, magazines, graphic novels, and the erotic Eros Comix imprint. History Founding Fantagraphics was founde ...

to reprint ''Omaha,'' with an additional 100 pages. However, she was diagnosed with cancer, and she died in on June 6, 2004. Vance and Waller would later complete the ''Omaha'' series together, based on notes left by Worley.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Worley, Kate 1958 births 2004 deaths American comics writers Deaths from cancer Female comics writers Science fiction fans LGBT comics creators Bisexual writers Bisexual women 20th-century LGBT people