[spoiler]The cartoon features a lot of small panels, all featuring a single fat figure (some larger, some less large). The panels cascade and pile up on a final large image at the bottom of the strip.
CAPTION AT TOP: WHEN I GET THIN…
DUDE IN TIE: Then people will appreciate me.
ENTHUSED WOMAN: Then I’ll write my novel.
PERSON IN GLASSES: Then I’ll have the lover I deserve.
DISTANT WOMAN: Then I’ll go dancing.
WOMAN IN ZIG ZAG SHIRT: Then I’ll buy some nice clothes.
GUY WITH BACK TURNED: Then I won’t be so shy.
BALDING MAN: Then I’ll deserve to have a lover.
WOMAN READING NEWSPAPER: Then I’ll look for a better job.
MAN LOOKING IN MIRROR: Then I’ll like myself.
(There are several panels at the bottom which we can’t see all of, due to other panels piled on top of them, but we can see little bits of characters and dialog, all starting with the word “then”).
The bottom of the strip shows a person with long dark hair, arms on hips, facing a wall (and away from the viewer) and glaring. There’s a big window, but the person isn’t looking out the window.
PERSON (in thought balloons): Then! Then! Then![/spoiler]
I had sex tonight with the most beautiful woman I have been with in 20+ years. Won’t describe her, except to say that she is perhaps 30 pounds overweight by conventional standards for a woman her size (5’5″). The weight shows as just a slight paunch and nice strong legs. In any rational assessment (say, based on a poll) she would be a 9+.
She is convinced that she is 80 lbs overweight and ugly.
I don’t know what to do about this as a person or as a man. (This = the larger phenomenon, not the relationship with this woman.)
Cartoons like this help, I think.
I have to confess that I’m not entirely sure I understood the bottom part of the cartoon. Is the person facing the corner supposed to be an example of someone concerned about his or her own weight and thinking all the “then” thoughts? Or is he or she supposed to be the cartoonist’s avatar, frustrated not at their own weight but rather at the “then” thoughts of all the people above?
Not that this affects the main point of the cartoon, which I think is very well conveyed by the top two thirds.
Eytan, I was thinking of it as an example of someone putting of his/her own life until the mythical post-weight-loss time.
But your other interpretation is interesting, too. :-)
Thank you for sharing this. I really loved it. It mists my eyes, tho’.
It’s a good cartoon. Just FYI you misspelled “look” as “Lok for a better job” and you only bolded “then” in “Then I won’t be so shy,” not anywhere else. I don’t know if the second one is intentional.
The “Then I’ll deserve to have a lover” guy looks so sad…he reminds me of someone I know.
Thanks for another great cartoon, Amp. I really like this one. I think it hits very personally.
This is a great cartoon.
“Semplice, ma bene.” Toscanini (1941).
Excellent cartoon, Amp.
Excellent cartoon, but I don’t know if there’s any way to present the problem going even deeper than that— Kate Harding wrote about having to give up the fantasy of being an adventurous extrovert along with the fantasy of being thin– “thin” has an amazing about of totally irrational stuff associated with it.
Everyone: Thank you!
Nancy, thanks for that link. (I don’t think the fatosphere has ever had a better writer than Kate Harding.) I may try to do a cartoon about that someday.
G&W, thank you! (And: AAAARGH!) I’ll fix that the next time I go into the studio.
Nobody.Really: translation?
“Simple, but good.”
translate.google.com
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My that cartoon hits really close to home. I wish I’ve found the fatosphere before I got bulimia… I laughed and cried hard, so thank you barry.