Chocolate! Chocolate! Chocolate! ACK!

I know the comic strip figure Cathy has been the butt of jokes in recent years, even mocked on Saturday Night Live, but I confess I have always liked Cathy and her creator, Cathy Guisewite.

. 

I'm not sure what this sticker is supposed to mean.

Cathy is best-remembered for obsessing about her weight--and chocolate in particular--in an annoying way.

I know; you read this and you're all like, "really, Cathy? You like chocolate THAT much?"

But going through my sticker collection makes me wonder if we weren't all obsessed with chocolate in the 1980s.

To ponder: was it an obsession with chocolate, or did the 1980s just have an eating disorder? For every sticker featuring something fattening, I also seem to have a sticker expressing anxiety over dieting.

Let's give Cathy a break, here. She was simply reflecting the cultural mores of her era. From a feminist point of view. As long as women are held up to an impossibly high standard of beauty and fitness then we are all doomed to have a complicated relationship with food. 

To return to Boynton:

Bring Back Boynton

So, after my last blog post, I got to wondering: "whatever happened to Sandra Boynton?" 

After all, her classic greeting card and sticker designs were everywhere in the 1980s. 

The combination of cuteness and wry humor is unmistakable:

Cute (l.); wry (r.).

 Cute (l.); wry (r.)

She also combined wry cuteness with the struggle of the modern (wo)man to come to terms with the pressures of Jane Fonda's workout and the cholesterol scare of the time:

(left to right:) cute; food humor; cute; food humor

And if this blog is at least in part about nostalgia, isn't it worth noting that she can also be remembered for a kind of Cathy-style running joke about chocolate that you just don't find anymore?

 

And I thought, what an inspired blog post title: "whatever happened to Sandra Boynton?"

So I looked her up. Naturally, she has a website. And I realize not only is she going strong, she is timeless. 

I loooooove her dry, self-effacing sense of humor:

"Trying to think of a motto since 1973."

Heh.

Look around at her children's books, her autobiography, and the Zazzle store (sadly, there are no stickers for sale) while enjoying her wit and liberal use of fifty-cent words.  I think you will agree with me that it is time to bring back Boynton!!

Cute.

Back to the blog

The lack of awesome posts about awesome stickers for the last week is due to the simple fact that I've been away and unable to blog. I am back home now, which means I am happy

 

if dead tired. 

So, to the five of you who are reading this (and I know who you are), I appreciate your patience!