Bravo to cartoonist Carol Lay, not only for losing a bunch of weight to get down to a slim ‘n’ trim 125, but for documenting her diet travails in the form of a graphic memoir, THE BIG SKINNY: HOW I CHANGED MY FATTITUDE. It’s such a no-brainer format, you’ll wonder why no one has thought of it earlier. (Perhaps they just couldn’t draw?)
Most diet books tell you how to dump the extra pounds and leave it at that, but with a gentle wit like Lay at the helm, you also learn how she got to be overweight in the first place. In my opinion, you need the perspective of both the uphill and the downhill to be truly effective.
In unfussy panels, Lay lays it all out concerning her trying every trick under the sun in trying to shed pounds, and luckily, she has a real sense of humor about it that makes her 100 percent amiable. You can’t help but love her whether she’s failing or succeeding. At some point, the stories hit the same point over and over, but this requires so little effort to read, it’s hard to fault the thing. Plus, the slew of healthy recipes at the end is appreciated.
But I’m still eating two brownies as I write this. —Rod Lott
