DROWNING GIRL
ROY LICHTENSTEIN, 1963
Brad. A tremendous name for somebody you absolutely refuse to call while going under. I'd rather sink than call Brad for help. You have to respect the commitment. Not to survival. 'To the bit'. Now. Where she comes from. A DC romance comic. Secret Hearts, issue eighty-three, November 1962. Three of Lichtenstein's edits tell the whole story. One. In the original, the boyfriend is right there in the background, hanging onto a capsized boat. Lichtenstein cropped him out. Kept the drowning. Cut the rescue. In the comic, this is one moment in a story. Turn the page and something happens next. Here, there is no next. No boat. No boyfriend. No way out. Just her, the wave, and that one enormous feeling. Two. The boyfriend wasn't called Brad. He was called Mal. Lichtenstein wanted a heroic name. His words. Three. The original line was, I don't care if I have a cramp. He cut the cramp. Then he blew the panel up to nearly six feet square and painted it to look mechanically printed. Maximum feeling, delivered with no visible feeling in the paint. Look at her. The wave is going wild and the hair stays perfect. Perfect hand. Perfect tear. Perfect drowning. Even her collapse has been art-directed. And still, it works. Because everybody's been in some version of it. Real pain, and ready to go under before showing it to the person causing it. Lichtenstein is enough of a bastard to make it glamorous and pathetic at the same time. A sob story, a punchline, and an ad, all in one frame. The original panel was drawn by a comic-book artist named Tony Abruzzo. Tony, never got a credit.