A collaboration with Barry Deutsch

Hi patrons,

This is a cartoon that Barry wrote and I drew a couple weeks ago. Last time we did a cartoon about anti-fat stigma, someone responded with this tweet:

"OMG this. I was very ill through last Winter. I lost about 50 lbs through being too sick to be active and at times even too sick to eat. Returning to my workplace after going through that, most reactions appreciated my weight loss more than my health."

I was excited to draw another cartoon on this topic, and Barry was happy for me to draw a lot of environments that need to be instantly recognizable while being read on a tiny phone screen.

My mom, a former Physician Assistant, helped me decorate the doctor's office in Panel 1. I wasn't sure if this conversation should take place in an exam room, with the main character in a paper gown, or what. She said the doctor might have the patient get dressed and move into a comfortable office (preferably with a support person) before delivering heavy news. She suggested the doctor have a model of whichever body part the cancer was located in.

This led to a gChat discussion with Barry about what type of cancer the character has.   [Thank you Barry, for doing the research on this!] ("The doctor says she has a good chance of surviving, so it's not lung or brain cancer. But it's bad enough to require chemotherapy (i.e., it can't be treated purely with surgery). It would make sense if she has Hodgkin lymphoma. Commonly treated with chemo, and an 86% survival rate...") You can order models of lymph nodes online, but how many laypeople would recognize a cartoon lymph node (not me!). So I opted for a head-and-neck cutaway.

Panel 2: After what seemed like ages of searching for images of "those bar thingies behind hospital beds," I finally found a website for a company that makes "Medical Gas and Electric Headwalls"! It had high-res photos and diagrams of the gas, oxygen, and outlets! I was way too excited relative to the amount of space they take up in the cartoon. But I like to think that the knowledge and authenticity seep into the cartoon somehow.

The color scheme in Panel 3 was inspired by my memories of eating dinner at St. Francis Hospital in the early 90s, on evenings that my mom was on call. Looking back, that cafeteria must have been a depressing place! My parents must have been relieved when I got non-picky enough for the Indian restaurant across the street.

My soundtrack for drawing panel 4 was the JAWS episode of the podcast Why Are Dads. (It's co-hosted by Sarah Marshall of You're Wrong About, which I'm obsessed with.) So when I look at the houses in Panel 4, in particular, I hear a deep discussion of JAWS, veterans, and how Americans look progressively more weather-beaten as you drive further east.

I hope you liked this dive behind the scenes! The next SuperButch page should be ready in a couple of days. Thanks, as always, for supporting me on Patreon!

-Becky

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TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels, plus a small additional "kicker" panel underneath the cartoon.

PANEL 1

We see a woman seated in a doctor's office, facing the doctor's desk. The woman has cat's-eye glasses and purple hair, and is quite fat. She's holding her hands in front of her mouth, looking afraid. We'll call her GLASSES.

On the other side of the desk, the doctor is seated, talking to Glasses. She's displaying a plastic model showing the anatomy of the head and neck.

DOCTOR: Your cancer is treatable. But it's going to be a  hard road.

PANEL 2

A caption at the top of the panel says ONE MONTH LATER. 

Glasses is lying in a hospital bed, which has it's head side partly raised. She's lying on her side, facing away from her visitor, looking limp, her eyes mostly shut.

In the other side of the bed, a visitor, a balding middle-aged man wearing a green tee shirt, is holding a spoon in one hand and a container (jello, maybe?) in the other. He looks very worried.

VISITOR: Please eat something...

GLASSES: I... I don't think I can.

PANEL 3

A caption at the top of the panel says THREE MONTHS LATER.

Glasses, wearing a hospital gown and slippers, is walking in a dreary hospital corridor. She's using a walker, and with one hand she's holding a cell phone by her face, talking to someone. She looks cheerful. She's much thinner than she was in panel 1, with bags under her eyes and her cheekbones standing out.

GLASSES: I'm not completely out of the woods yet. But they say I can go home.

PANEL 4

A caption at the top of the panel says THE NEXT DAY.

Glasses, dressed in a blue blouse and white pants, is on the front yard of a nice-looking adobe bungalow house with a tiled roof, approaching the front door. We can see that this house is one of a row of similar houses on this block. Other than the clothes, she looks a lot like she did in panel three, and is again using a walker.

A friend is standing in the doorway, greeting her cheerfully. Glasses' mouth is open, but she's not speaking; she doesn't know what to say.

FRIEND: Wow, you lost so much weight! You look great!

SMALL KICKER PANEL UNDER THE COMIC

The same friend is talking to Glasses; glasses still looks surprised. 

FRIEND: Man, I wish I could get cancer!