We’ve seen comics as fiction, comics as biography, comics as autobiography, even comics as journalism. But comics as confessional self-help guide? Well, we have now. Carol Lay used to be fat and is now thin, but she didn’t do it with miracle diets or tablets designed to cheat yourself thin. She did it by eating more sensibly and doing a bit of exercise.
This book (subtitled How I Lost My Fattitude) is both memoir of her ups and downs on the way to losing weight and keeping it off, and a collection of tips, information and recipes to help you do the same thing. We’ve never seen anything like it, but it looks great, appears full of sensible advice and is a great way of seeing that being overweight isn’t an inescapable condition. It’s also a fascinating way of using comics to get an important message across.