FAT POSTCARDS
Many of 'em were purchased as a gag - the sender putting an arrow and the recipient's name alongside the full-sized figure rendered on the picture - but to many fat admirers, fat-theme postcards have a resonance beyond their simple joke status. In the best postcard artists' work ( Donald McGill, Walter Wellman, Arthur Thiele, E. L. White, Craig Fox, Walt Munson et al) we frequently see fat adults portrayed attractively: their image as vibrant sexual beings at odds with the simple put-down punchlines. The jokes may be repetitive (lotsa butt jokes, plenty o' punchlines copied from card to card) and sexist. But time and coarsening sensitivities in the world of pop culture have made 'em innocent. The fattest figure in a forties postcard has twenty times the dignity of your average fat card in Spenser's Gifts - which is why I keep returning to 'em.
For this page, blame fatabiliologist Karl Neidershuh. His two articles on fat postcards several years back in Dimensions magazine first piqued my interest in these relatively inexpensive collectibles, while his two current on-line postcard pages (see: Karl Neidershuh Presents) sparked the display below. And, you know something, I think that Dotty in the second card looks exactly like [insert name of spouse, girlfriend or relative here]!
WB
(Click on the thumbnails if you actually wanna see these things.)
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