Born in Toronto in 1965, Catherine Doherty's interest in comics started early when she discovered the unpublished comic artwork of her father, Jack Doherty, which he kept in a metal file box in the basement. Trained as an architect and often earning her money as a designer in the film industry, Catherine prefers to split her time between drawing comics and playing in her all-girl cowboy band, The Jane Waynes.
Her first published work was 'Can of Worms', published by Fantagraphics Books. A thinly veiled autobiographical fiction, the book is a wordless graphic novel in the tradition of Frans Masereel, Lynd Ward, and Milt Gross. Upon discovering that she was adopted, Catherine Flaherty searched for her birth mother. She navigated between bureaucratic sleuthing and her profound need to uncover her history.