The comic strip “Cathy,” which has chronicled the life, frustrations and swimsuit season meltdowns of its namesake for more than 30 years, is coming to an end. Cathy Guisewite, the strip's creator, said Wednesday that deciding to end the comic strip was “excruciating.” The comic has won several awards, including a 1992 National Cartoonists Society's Reuben Award and an Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program in 1987, and at its height appeared in 1,400 papers. The final “Cathy” strip, will run in newspapers on Sunday, Oct. 3. Guisewite, 59, said she chose to end the largely autobiographical comic strip because she wanted more time with her 18-year-old daughter and her parents and because “other personal deadlines started becoming more pressing for me than the newspaper ones.”