While I was reading the Winter 1950 issue of the romance comic Darling Love (as one does on a Sunday afternoon), I came across the 8-page story “Too Fat for Love,” written by May Richstone and drawn by Harry Lucey. And I wondered—would I be as pleased with its ending as I was with the slut-shaming smackdown from that 1954 issue of Dream Book of Romance?

By which I mean …

… would Mona Cacchio, constantly ridiculed for her weight, be allowed by the storytellers to find true love without having to conform to society’s pressures to achieve a supposedly ideal size? Or would they insist she become slim to be seen as deserving of a mate?

Let’s see, shall we?

Mona is constantly mocked for her weight, by all save her parents and next-door neighbor Tony Cleaver, who tells her he likes her just the way she is.

She doesn’t believe him, though, thinking him a hypocrite. At least the others are truthful, she says, when they compare her to “an army tank” or “a tub of butter.”

But then along comes Gene Gibbs, who works in her father’s candy factory, and claims that he fell in love with her thanks to a photo he happened to see—and now he wants to marry her. (Wait—Mona’s father owns a candy factory? In a story with a theme like this, shouldn’t that be the kind of information we’re given when the story begins, rather than on page four?)

She falls for Gene, though why she believes he doesn’t care about her size when she previously pushed Tony away—multiple times!—is never explained.

So it appears that Mona would no longer be “a fat woman no man would ever love.”

But wait—not so fast! One day, Mona shows up at the candy factory looking for her father …

… and overhears that Dad is bribing Gene with half the company, or else “I won’t marry that fat daughter of yours!”

After learning this, Mary locks herself away, intending “to stay in my room forever!” Her parents are so worried after a week of her solitude and lack of desire for food that they break down her door.

Kindly old Doctor Rose declares her to be weak due to severe shock and malnutrition. While the examination is going on, Mona’s next-door neighbor Tony (remember him?) sneaks into the room and once more declares his love, saying, “I don’t care if you’re fat or skinny, short or tall. I’m in love with you.”

This time, Mona believes him … though there’s no explanation why, especially not after she was just betrayed by someone else who served up exactly the same platitudes.

Mona agrees to marry Tony, who loved her just the way she was … only surprise, surprise, when she gets up from her sickbed, “I discovered that my fat had rolled away and I was slim!”

Really? Really?

As you might guess, I was less than pleased with the ending. Tony’s love may have been true, but that final panel has him a little too excited by the physical change sickness made to Mona. And the ending as a whole definitely equated thinness with happiness, a mixed message indeed.

Now if story had allowed Mona to find true love with Tony without the need for an illness-induced weight loss, that would have been an ending worth celebrating.