The artwork above is Samuel Capper’s The Fat Man. Note the figure’s left arm, the one pointing at the screen. I love the unabashed grotesquerie of this image — so often cyborg bodies conform to the ideals of celebrity magazines and mainstream porn.
I’m not saying that fatness is inherently grotesque, but that within the context of modern beauty norms, obesity is viewed with contempt. It is radical to combine the triple chin and robot arm in one character — this implies a future in which sophisticated body mods are available, but the pressure to be thin and “fit” is either gone or disregarded.
I also love the allusion to The Maltese Falcon, both in the portrait’s title and its style. (Sydney Greenstreet’s character is dubbed the Fat Man.) Cyberpunk is often cited as a genre with noir roots, but aside from Blade Runner the visuals have often tended more toward space-age sleekness than old-school back-alley grime.
Give me more nastiness, more cigarettes, more computers held together with duct tape. More Slim Jims and less Soylent. And more body diversity — but I want that from all media.
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