The Big Skinny: How I Changed My fattitude
By: Carol Lay
Language: English
208 pages, colour
Villard, 2008
ISBN: 978-0345504043
This is a book that makes me happy, showing as it does that comics can be so many things other than easily digested entertainment. Breaking new grounds in comics (as far as I know) Carol Lay has made a self-help book for people who want to lose weight. Not an unusual category on the "ordinary" book shelves, but in comics a first. And having both worked as a cartoonist for almost 30 years, and having struggled with her weight for most of her life, Lay was unusually adept at doing this book. The Big Skinny is mostly autobiographical, telling the story of how Lay grew up being overweight, how she tried every solution in the book, and how she finally realised that which so many before her has realised: that there is no easy solution and that it's all about keeping track of what you eat and balancing that with an adequete amount of exercise. Sounds simple, but for many it is not. Lay presents her case pedagogically but not boring, always using herself as an example of what to do, but also what not to do. The book contain charts for counting calories, loads of recipes etc. but it is the auto-biographical accounts that grab hold of you as a reader. I'm not in need of losing weight, but I still found this book interesting, especially since it is such a good showcase for what can be done with comics.
