Linda Fite

Linda Fite is an American writer and editor who wrote the entire four issue run of the Marvel Comics series The Cat (1972).[1]

Biography

Linda Fite was hired by Marvel as an editorial assistant/production assistant. Though she continually appealed to editor Roy Thomas for writing assignments,[1] from 1968–1971 she was given only short back-up features in The Uncanny X-Men and Rawhide Kid. In 1972 she got her first offer to be a regular writer, on Claws of the Cat, an early and unsuccessful attempt to appeal to female superhero comic readers. Fite was selected because Marvel's editorial staff thought a series targeted toward female readers should have a female creative team.[1]

Fite has said that she found the character unappealing: "I thought, 'A cat? Oh, my God, how original. We’ll have a woman and we’ll call her Cat and she can be in catfights.' But I was just happy to have the chance to do it."[1] She infused the series with a woman's liberation tone, but it was cancelled after four issues due to poor sales. She had already completed the never-published fifth issue.[1]

Other stories she wrote included a fill-in issue of Night Nurse. Fite wrote and illustrated a one-page story for an East Coast independent/underground comic published by Flo Steinberg, Big Apple Comix (Sept. 1975).

While serving as an assistant to Marvel editor-in-chief Stan Lee, Fite helped bring fledgling artist Barry Windsor-Smith to the company. After she responded with an encouraging note to art he had sent to the Marvel offices, Smith and a friend, Steve Parkhouse, flew from England and camped out near the Marvel Comics offices, seeking work.[2]

Fite worked for the Times Herald-Record, a daily newspaper based in Middletown, New York,[3] and she is currently managing editor of the BlueStone Press in Ulster County, New York.

Fite was married to, and then divorced, Marvel Comics artist Herb Trimpe.[4] They had three children together.[5]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Cassell, Dewey (August 2006). "Talking About Tigra: From the Cat to Were-Woman". Back Issue! (17). TwoMorrows Publishing: 26–33.
  2. ^ Cooke, Jon B. "Alias Barry Smith" (Barry Smith interview), Comic Book Artist #2, 1998.
  3. ^ Times Herald-Record: "Linda Fite" search results and Linda Fite personnel page
  4. ^ Trimpe, Herb, "Old Superheroes Never Die, They Join the Real World", The New York Times education supplement, January 7, 2000, via HulkLibrary.com Archived May 17, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ Porch Dogs: "The Illustrators – Herb Trimpe" Archived February 13, 2005, at the Wayback Machine