From the latest
Comics Buyer's Guide newsletter:
Kate Worley, March 16, 1958-June 6, 2004
Kate Worley, the comic-book writer best known for her co-creation, with Reed Waller, of the
Omaha, the Cat Dancer series, died of cancer on the evening of June 6. She had returned to radiation and chemo treatment on April 21. As reported in an earlier CBG Express, she and Waller were in the midst of wrapping up the as-yet incomplete adult-oriented saga of Omaha, because Les Humanoides plans to reprint the entire series in color.
Waller wrote online June 8, "In spite of the difficulty of our separation many years ago, Kate and I gradually tried to make peace, and were finally talking comfortably, and by the time the inquiries started to come about whether
Omaha could be finished, we were both excited at the prospect of picking up our unfinished business and doing more of the work that made us what we are. At this moment I have two pages written by Kate only a few weeks ago, sitting on my drawing table in the midst of being inked.
"If the Omaha project contract does in fact go through in spite of Kate's passing, the writing work will be concluded by James Vance, with my assistance, from the copious notes that Kate has left in preparation for the story's completion." Vance is the creator of, among other projects,
Kings in Disguise (from Kitchen Sink in 1988 and 1989). "Jim is not only Kate's spouse, he is probably the only other writer working in comics who has a voice anything like Kate's. It will not be easy for us to complete this highly personal work, after all the heartbreak and trouble associated with it over the years, and now this sadness. But it's something that needs to be done, now, and I hope that Les Humanoides will give us an opportunity to do so."
A decade ago for a
CBG project, Worley cited her biggest creative influences as Will Eisner, Milton Caniff, and Frank King. In Pure Imagination's
Tease! #1 (1994), she wrote that her father had died when she was 3 years old and she had been raised by a single, working mother. "My family didn't have a great deal of money," she wrote, "and I never had vast quantities of toys. But books were never skimped on." She said she had enjoyed reading when very young: not only Reader's Digest but also her brother's collection of
Playboy. In her comics-creating career, she produced a variety of comics projects, including material for
Roger Rabbit Adventures.
In the course of his August 1993 introduction to an
Omaha, the Cat Dancer collection, Neil Gaiman wrote, "
Omaha, the Cat Dancer is a soap opera, but it's drama, not melodrama; it is a funny animal comic, but the funny animals are real people; and it's neither erotica nor pornography - simply a story in which virtual cameras continue to roll while people take their clothes off and make love (just as they do in the world you and I inhabit)."
Worley is survived by her husband, James Vance, their two children (son Jacob and daughter Sarah), two sisters, a brother, nieces, and nephews. In its earlier report,
CBG quoted Gaiman's website posting concerning the couple: "They're out at the edges of losing their home. They need help." Cards and other support may be sent to Vance at 323 Yorktown, Tulsa, OK 74104.
-------------------------------------------
[ Link to this item ]
-------------------------------------------
