The Cat Girl is a

British comic A British comic is a periodical published in the United Kingdom that contains comic strips. It is generally referred to as a comic or a comic magazine, and historically as a comic paper. British comics are usually Comics anthology, comics antho ...

character who has appeared in eponymous strips published by IPC Magazines and

Rebellion Developments Rebellion Developments Limited is a British video game developer based in Oxford, England. Founded by Jason and Chris Kingsley in December 1992, the company is best known for its ''Sniper Elite'' series and multiple games in the ''Alien vs. Pre ...

. The character, a girl called Cathy Carter who finds a suit that gives her the attributes of a cat and becomes a crimefighter, first appeared in the launch issue of weekly girls' comic '' Sally'' on 14 June 1969.

Creation

In 1969

Fleetway Publications Fleetway Publications was a magazine publishing company based in London. It was founded in 1959 when the Mirror Group acquired the Amalgamated Press, then based at Fleetway House, Farringdon Street, London. It was one of the companies that merg ...

and Odhams Press had been merged to form IPC Magazines under the ownership of the Mirror Group and

Reed International RELX plc (pronounced "Rel-ex") is a British multinational information and analytics company headquartered in London, England. Its businesses provide scientific, technical and medical information and analytics; legal information and analytics; ...

. The company's sheaf of successful juvenile titles were a major attraction, and thus IPC would launch a succession of new comics with newly appointed managing editor John Sanders charged with devising them. The first of these was the girls' weekly '' Sally'' in June 1969. Compared to many other girls' titles covering "struggling orphans, wandering waifs, and fish-out-of-water stories", the new title featured an unusual amount of adventure strips, including "Legion of the Super-Slaves", "Tiny Tania in Space", "The Girl from Tomorrow", "The Justice of Justine" and "The Cat Girl". "The Cat Girl" was drawn by Giorgio Giorgetti, an artist born in

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

who had been running a studio in

Margate Margate is a seaside resort, seaside town on the north coast of Kent in south-east England. The town is estimated to be 1.5 miles long, north-east of Canterbury and includes Cliftonville, Garlinge, Palm Bay, UK, Palm Bay and Westbrook, Kent, ...

since 1950, and had worked on numerous British comics including ''

Eagle Eagle is the common name for many large birds of prey of the family Accipitridae. Eagles belong to several groups of genera, some of which are closely related. Most of the 68 species of eagle are from Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just ...

'' and ''

June June is the sixth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and is the second of four months to have a length of 30 days, and the third of five months to have a length of less than 31 days. June contains the summer solstice in ...

''.

Publishing history

''Sally'' was published until 27 March 1971, before merging with ''Tammy''. It has been speculated that, as a newer title, ''Sally'' suffered disproportionately from a printer's dispute that meant no new issues of most IPC titles were released between 14 November 1970 and 30 January 1971. The merger was unusual as ''Tammy'' had only been launched the previous month; IPC mergers typically saw the longer-running title retained and the newer comic incorporated. "The Cat Girl" survived the merger, and would run in ''Tammy'' until September 1971. Cat Girl's adventures were also translated and printed in mainland Europe. In the long-running Dutch comic ''Tina'', the strip was renamed "Katja Kruif – Het Katmeisje" and ran until #26; these pages were colourised. In

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

the strips were compiled as ''Caty – La Chica Gato'' by

Editorial Bruguera Ediciones B is a Spanish publisher, which currently operates as a division of Penguin Random House. Ediciones B is headquartered in Madrid and Barcelona, Spain; with branches throughout Latin America. It was established in 1986, but has its origin ...

. Cat Girl made a brief cameo in the '' 2000 AD'' serial "

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" in 1989, but was swiftly killed off alongside ''Buster'' characters

The Leopard from Lime Street ''The Leopard from Lime Street'' was a comic strip appearing in the British comic ''Buster (comic), Buster'' from 1976 in comics, 1976 to 1985 in comics, 1985. Written by Tom Tully (writer), Tom Tully,Fishboy by the

Lloigor Lloigor is the name of a fictional deity and a fictional race in the Cthulhu Mythos. The entity first appeared in August Derleth and Mark Schorer's short story "The Lair of the Star Spawn" (1932), and has been used in subsequent fictional works by o ...

-possessed Mr Why. As the character's adventures started before 1 January 1970, the Cat Girl was among the properties retained by IPC their library of titles still in publication was sold off to Pergamon Holdings in the early 1990s. In 2018 this library was purchased by

. This allowed the character to make a brief cameo in Rebellion's ''The Vigilant'' series, where Cat Girl was shown as a member of an earlier deceased version of the eponymous team. A new strip was created for Rebellion's 2020 ''Tammy and Jinty Special''; written by Ramzee with art by Elkys Nova, "Cat Girl Returns" depicted Cathy's daughter Claire discovering the costume and taking up the mantle. In August 2020, Rebellion issued the compendium ''The Best of Cat Girl'' as part of the

Treasury of British Comics Treasury of British Comics is a line of comic book collections published by Rebellion Developments, collecting British comics stories from the libraries of Amalgamated Press/Fleetway Publications/IPC Magazines. History Rebellion Developments had ...

, collecting two of the serials from ''Sally'', a story from the 1971 ''Sally Annual'' and the 2020 revival strip, with a new cover by Nova. A hardcover version using Giorgetti's art for the cover was also released, exclusive to the Treasury of British Comics website.

Plot summary

The daughter of a widowed and absent-minded private eye, Cathy Carter is observing him at work from their attic when she discovers a cat costume in a casket sent to her father from Africa by a grateful witch doctor. On a whim, she tries it on and suddenly finds she can leap incredible distances with perfect balance. As such, she is able to save her father from a vicious beating from the thugs of crime kingpin the Eagle while avoiding discovery. She subsequently aids her unwitting father against his enemies, finding she is also able to see in the dark and navigate at night with ease - while also finding the magic suit's abilities were not all positive, as it caused her to panic in water and develop a ravenous appetite for fish. Cathy helps her father foil the Eagle's attempts to steal priceless jewellery from Lady Harrison and rob a train, escape from kidnapping by Kabari sheikh Kaspar, foil evil scientist Professor Von Kapp and his robot Hermann and Christmas gift thief the Duke (actually a bitter young boy called Joe) in the

Swiss Swiss may refer to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina *Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses *Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports *Swiss Internation ...

ski resort of St. Dorrinz, and helping actress Tootie Duval find her missing son Mark in

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

, discovering hidden gems in the Grand Theatre during a production of ''

Dick Whittington and His Cat Dick, Dicks, or Dick's may refer to: Media * ''Dicks'' (album), a 2004 album by Fila Brazillia * Dicks (band), a musical group * ''Dick'' (film), a 1999 American comedy film * "Dick" (song), a 2019 song by Starboi3 featuring Doja Cat Names ...

'' while foiling an attempt by bratty actress Angela Cook to steal her suit - on each occasion hiding the extent of her help from her oblivious dad so he can take the credit.

Collected edition

Reception

British comics expert and professional John Freeman is a fan of the character and called for "The Cat Girl" to be collected in 2020, noting that the strip prefigured "

Lew Stringer Lew Stringer (born 22 March 1959 in England) is a freelance comic artist and scriptwriter. Biography Stringer began his career from the late 1970s with a series of fanzines, many featuring his popular '' Brickman'' character; these were read by ...

. The character has also been compared to the

Golden Age The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the ''Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages of Man, Ages, Gold being the first and the one during ...

character

Miss Fury Miss Fury is a fictional superheroine from the Golden Age of Comics. She first appeared as ''The Black Fury'' on April 6, 1941, a Sunday comic strip distributed by the Bell Syndicate, and created by artist June Tarpé Mills (writing as Tarpé M ...

and DC Thomson girls' comics "The Laughing Cats" and "Catch the Cat!", which also featured young heroines in cat costumes. Reviewing a post-merger issue of ''Tammy and Sally'', A Resource on Jinty considered the strip "light relief against the grimness of the ''Tammy'' stories that focus on cruelty and misery". Reviewing ''The Best of Cat Girl'' for ComicScene, Martin Dallard fondly recalled reading "The Cat Girl" in his sister's comics, and praised Giorgetti's "quirky" art. Girls Comics of Yesterday also praised the collection.

References

External links

''The Cat Girl'' at The Tammy Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cat Girl Fleetway and IPC Comics characters Fleetway and IPC Comics strips Fictional characters with superhuman senses British comic strips British comics characters Comics set in Switzerland Comics set in England Comics set in Venice Fictional characters who can move at superhuman speeds