Kathleen L Worley
Born(1958-03-16)March 16, 1958[1]
DiedJune 6, 2004(2004-06-06) (aged 46)
NationalityAmerican
Area(s)Writer
Notable works
Omaha the Cat Dancer
CollaboratorsReed Waller
kateworley.com

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 radio program Shockwave Radio Theater.

Biography

Worley was born in Belleville, Illinois on March 16, 1958.[2] After moving to Minneapolis, Minnesota in the 1970s, she became one of the early contributors the Shockwave Radio Theater there.[3][4]

While in the process of divorcing from her husband,[2] she and cartoonist and musician Reed Waller began a romantic and professional relationship.[5] 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 conventions.[3]

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,[2] before evolving into a nationally distributed comic book series published by Kitchen Sink Press. Four pages into issue #2, Waller suffered writer's block, and Worley offered "a few tentative suggestions about directions for the storyline, new characters, anything she could think of that might help...."[3] At his invitation, she became the series' writer, enhancing its characterization and themes.[3] In 1988, Waller identified them both as bisexual in the letters column of the series.[6][7]

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.[2] During this time, Worley wrote comics for various publishers, including Mulkon Empire for Tekno Comix, The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest for Dark Horse, Roger Rabbit for Disney, and a "Year One" annual issue of Wonder Woman.[2][8] She married comic book writer Jim Vance,[3] with whom she moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and had a son and daughter.[2]

In 2002, she and Waller reached a deal with Fantagraphics to reprint Omaha, with an additional 100 pages.[2] However, she was diagnosed with cancer, and she died June 6, 2004.[3] Vance and Waller would later complete the Omaha series together, based on notes left by Worley.

References

  1. "United States Social Security Death Index," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/V3PJ-FMN : accessed April 4, 2013), Kathleen L Worley, June 6, 2004.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Gustines, George Gene (March 27, 2020). "Overlooked No More: Kate Worley, a Pioneer Writer of Erotic Comics". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved March 28, 2020.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Biography of Kate Worley". CatDancer Corporation. Archived from the original on May 2, 2010. Retrieved June 4, 2010.
  4. "Annotation of Shockwave Silver". Dave Romm. Archived from the original on February 5, 2012. Retrieved July 12, 2016.
  5. Waller, Reed (1995) [1987]. "Introduction to "Omaha"". The Collected "Omaha" the Cat Dancer. Fantagraphics Books. ISBN 978-1-56097-161-0.
  6. Omaha the Cat Dancer #10. Kitchen Sink Press. 1988. p. 32.
  7. Booker, M. Keith (May 11, 2010). Encyclopedia of Comic Books and Graphic Novels [2 volumes]: [Two Volumes]. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-0-313-35747-3.
  8. "GCD :: Story Search Results". www.comics.org. Retrieved March 28, 2020.
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