Omaha the Cat Dancer

"Omaha" the Cat Dancer
Omaha the Cat Dancer #1, featuring the principal characters, Charles Tabey Jr. aka Chuck Katt and Omaha.
Author(s)	Reed Waller and Kate Worley
Website	http://www.omahathecatdancer.com/
Launch date	1978
Alternate name(s)	The Adventures of Omaha
Publisher(s)	Kitchen Sink, SteelDragon, Fantagraphics, NBM
Genre(s)	Erotic, funny animal, soap opera

"Omaha" the Cat Dancer is an erotic comic strip and later comic book created by artist Reed Waller and writer Kate Worley. Set in fictional Mipple City, Minnesota (derived from "MPLS," the old postal abbreviation for Minneapolis) in a universe populated by anthropomorphic funny animal characters, the strip is a soap opera focusing on Omaha, a feline exotic dancer, and her lover, Chuck, the son of a business tycoon.

The strip debuted in the funny animal magazine Vootie, and a number of underground comix in the late 1970s and early 1980s. "Omaha" the Cat Dancer became the subject of the eponymous comic book series published from 1984 to 1993 by Kitchen Sink Press; it was relaunched by Fantagraphics Books through 1995. The final chapters of the strip's storyline were published in Sizzle magazine, beginning in 2006.

"Omaha" the Cat Dancer was the first of several comic books published in the early 1980s which integrated explicit sex into their storylines, rather than utilizing sex for shock value. The comic was the subject of a number of obscenity controversies, and was nominated for multiple Eisner Awards in 1989 and 1991.

In 1976, Reed Waller founded Vootie, a fanzine intended to promote funny animal comics. He began developing the concept for "Omaha" the Cat Dancer after one of the magazine's contributors said that there was not enough sex in the genre. Inspired by Robert Crumb's Fritz the Cat, Waller began looking for a theme for his new comic. He visited local strip clubs in St. Paul with his sketchbook, and read newspaper articles about attempts to shut the bars down. Another contributor to the magazine, Jim Schumeister, proposed a comic called Charlie's Bimbos, in which "a bevy of strippers champion liberty in the face of Puritan oppression". This proposal sparked the idea for Omaha.