#30 Hilarious Comics featuring Fat Lady by Donald McGill from the Early 1900s #30 Artworks

Home »
#30

A seaside gag unfolds in Donald McGill’s early 1900s postcard-style comic, where a stout woman in a bright red, polka-dot dress perches confidently on a chair rigged to a weighing contraption. The caption delivers the punchline—there are “no more weights,” so she’ll have to “sit on twice”—while the scene leans into exaggerated proportions, bold outlines, and the kind of cheeky wordplay that made these humorous illustrations widely collectible.

Near the shoreline, small details do a lot of storytelling: a striped bathing hut and a beached boat suggest a holiday setting, while the sweating attendant in suspenders looks outmatched by both the machinery and the moment. The oversized “TON” weights hanging nearby heighten the absurdity, turning an everyday act of being weighed into a theatrical spectacle, complete with visual cues of strain and a knowingly embarrassed onlooker.

McGill’s signature appears at the lower edge, grounding the artwork in the recognizable tradition of British seaside postcards and their broad, often bawdy comedy. For modern readers and collectors, the image is a time capsule of popular humor—loud, simple, and built for instant laughter—while also revealing period attitudes about bodies, class, and public amusement. As a historical photo-style artwork for a WordPress post, it’s ideal for anyone exploring early 20th-century comics, vintage postcard art, and the enduring appeal of cartoon exaggeration.