Kate Worley
Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox comics creator 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.
BiographyEdit
Worley was born in Belleville, Illinois on March 16, 1958.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite news</ref> After moving to Minneapolis, Minnesota in the 1970s, she became one of the early contributors the Shockwave Radio Theater there.<ref name="Omaha-WorleyBio">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
While in the process of divorcing from her husband,<ref name=":0" /> she and cartoonist and musician Reed Waller began a romantic and professional relationship.<ref name="Waller">Template:Cite book</ref> 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.<ref name="Omaha-WorleyBio" />
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,<ref name=":0" /> 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...."<ref name="Omaha-WorleyBio" /> At his invitation, she became the series' writer, enhancing its characterization and themes.<ref name="Omaha-WorleyBio" /> In 1988, Waller identified them both as bisexual in the letters column of the series.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
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.<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> She married comic book writer Jim Vance,<ref name="Omaha-WorleyBio" /> with whom she moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and had a son and daughter.<ref name=":0" />
In 2002, she and Waller reached a deal with Fantagraphics to reprint Omaha, with an additional 100 pages.<ref name=":0" /> However, she was diagnosed with cancer, and she died June 6, 2004.<ref name="Omaha-WorleyBio" /> Vance and Waller would later complete the Omaha series together, based on notes left by Worley.