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Artist's Statement Do not worry, tender readers—I am not heartbroken again. I am just fine. I drew a rough draft of this cartoon last winter in the throes of my wretchedness, and only decided to finish it this week because my beloved bartender Melissa is now suffering from the same terrible syndrome, and I thought it might cheer her up. This week Melissa told me something valuable that someone had told her about romantic loss; it feels like grieving a death, except, a in way, it’s even worse, because the person you’ve lost is, horribly, still alive, like some ghastly Monkey’s-Paw or Pod-Person travesty of their former selves. (C. my friend Megan’s remark last year that she could totally understand the impulse to kill your ex, because it was so painful to think of them going on without you.) Seeing someone heartbroken when you aren’t anymore is a shocking reminder of your own comparatively good emotional health. It’s hard to believe a person can be so miserable when there’s nothing physically wrong with them. It’s hard for them to believe, too—it hurts. It’s as if they are being invisibly tortured. I myself am relieved not to be heartbroken anymore. I’m glad, in retrospect, that I didn’t kill myself or do anything that would’ve gotten me sent to prison, because now I’d be sitting there contemplating another night of nonconsensual sodomy, trying to make liquor out of prunes in a plastic bag taped to the inside of a toilet bowl, thinking, all this over whatshername? Instead I’m drinkin’ some barley wine called Hog Heaven and playin’ Rock-‘Em-Sock-‘Em Robots with transsexuals down at Burp Castle! Yow! And someday, O heartbroken reader, I promise, you will be too. (Maybe not literally, since these days Rock-‘Em-Sock-‘Em Robots are harder to come by than transsexuals, but you know what I’m saying.) May the Heartbreak Fairy bring her bitter comfort to all those who place the little pieces of their freshly broken hearts beneath their pillows tonight. That’s my beloved groupie Alicia modeling as the Heartbreak Fairy. I never quite capture her likeness accurately, but then it’s been too long since I’ve seen her in person. |
