Saturday Morning Cartoons: Period

Welcome to Saturday Morning Cartoons, a segment where four artists take turns delighting you with their whimsy, facts and punchlines on Saturday mornings! Our four esteemed cartoon critters are Cameron GlavinAnna BongiovanniMegan Prazenica and Sarah Rosenblatt. Today’s cartoon is by Cameron!


PeriodComic


Cameron’s next comic will down a jar of cookie butter on May 10th.

Oh, and P.S.: you can purchase the above-pictured A-Camp sweatshirt, just fyi.

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Cameron

Cameron is an illustrator hailing from Ohio. When she’s not drawing, she’s probably very, very quietly having loud thoughts about: queer things, her eventual shop, what to watch next on Netflix, food, names for her future pets, and tumblr.

Cameron has written 76 articles for us.

49 Comments

  1. I’m about to type a sentence I never expected to type. Ready?

    Your uterus is so cute!

    Ok that was weird but it’s true.

  2. I haven’t gotten a period in a few years (thanks, Mirena!) but this made me LOL. And also feel weirdly nostalgic about my period? Like, I don’t miss the cramps and general ickiness, but I kind of miss feeling connected to other people who get periods, in a “we’re all in this together” kind of way. Has anyone else had these thoughts or am I alone in my menstrual nostalgia?

    • Nah, I totally feel you. One of my favorite things about living with other women in college was the SOLIDARITY that happened when our periods came around. Chocolate all around.

    • no, you are totally alone. Totally. I only feel for you because you don’t have a PMS related need for chocolate or rage.

      I bequeath you my Uterus.

      • Honey, you can have my ovaries anytime you want. They are driving me nuts every month! Though I must warn you that the cystic pearl rings might be rendering them unusable. Now my uterus I’ll keep, ’cause that apparently still works dandily if ultrasounds don’t lie.

    • No, I’m totally into the sisterhood that comes with menstruation. Like, I don’t even understand how women could handle being in a relationship with someone that can’t empathize with the shitshow that is my body one week a month. I mean, it affects everything: skin, my goddamn hips widen for fucks sake, bloating, nausea, cramps, homicidal tendencies, etc. I get super misandristy that week.
      I went to a women’s college and it was just the best. And no, contrary to popular belief the student body doesn’t all sync up. But there is an atmosphere of empathy/solidarity that you can’t find anywhere else except maybe a girls’ boarding school or something.
      Question, though: Do you like Mirena? I mean, there’s no way I could pregnant save rape, but I’ve thought about going on something to help with the period drama (hey PMDD hey)

      • I like Mirena a lot! I still had pretty gnarly periods when I was on the pill, plus I noticed a decrease in my sex drive, so I wanted a different method. Insertion was painful, but I knew what to expect and I knew it would be over soon, so I dealt with it fine. Then I had weird irregular spotting for maybe 6 months, and now it’s been 3.5 years and I haven’t had a proper period since. You may still ovulate with Mirena (it doesn’t have the same combination of hormones as most birth control pills) so I don’t know whether it would help with PMDD – I never had really noticeable mood swings, so I haven’t noticed a change. Good luck with your period drama!

        • I second this comment. Mirena has been great, and it definitely helped with my mood swings.

  3. The accuracy! Especially the 10 bags of doritos and cookie butter part. Gelato conveniently went on sale this week when I started my period and I can’t decide whether I hate my grocery store for that or not. Didn’t stop me from consuming an entire pint on Thursday.

  4. I love this comic and also your author bio. Very quietly having loud thoughts indeed. Mine would break down as 20% queer things, 10% Friday night lights on netflix, 30% tumblr, 20% names of future children and 20% sports.

  5. This is 100% accurate to my weekend. Yesterday I watched pitch perfect and drank hot tea while wearing a hoodie sweatshirt (next time: heating pad! good idea!) I also at pop tarts instead of doritos, but still, eerily accurate. Thanks for the laughs. My angry uterus appreciates it.

  6. This is super cute and probably very relevant to everyone but me because I’m very lucky and my period tends to be kind of an “oh, wait, am I bleeding?” thing.

    … And yes, I am aware that everyone hates me for it but my uterus just isn’t that cranky anymore, you guys! I’m sorry!

    • Same with me recently! One of the benefits of aging for me I guess? In my teens and 20s I definitely had a Gollum uterus. Now it’s more like … idk, Gimli? Slightly grumpy but, uh, still part of the fellowship of me.

      Ok that was a terrible analogy I apologize.

      • I like this game!

        I’m thinking mine is Gandalf: It was sporadic and largely gone for some time (while I was on Depo), but now it’s back completely.

        • mine is a Balrog. as in “a demon of the ancient world.” like, it could have been okay, but Morgoth got to it somewhere along the line & now it just hates me & brings everything down.

          ……….i’ll be in my corner?

    • My Uterus (capital U) is still a Total Bitch. Total Bitch. She is outta control. Unmodified, though, adulterated with experience, but, hey, it’s ok,right?
      This is the best depiction I can provide of her sheer obnoxiousness

  7. Hot water bottle kangarooing is perfect. As is the analogy of a gollum uterus…it really is a nasty mixed up and sometimes cruel thing.

  8. That uterus is both creepy and absolutely adorable. XD

    Super-relevant to my interests because after about 15 years of being the lotto winner of people with periods (no cramps, mood swings, cravings or break-outs, nothing but breast swelling and increased sex drive and all on the reliable schedule of a Japanese subway system), one little case of ovarian torsion is apparently enough for my left ovary to feel personally betrayed and punish me forever. -_-; It’s super-weird trying to figure out how to deal with cramps/mood-swings/cravings for the first time at 26. O_o; Also, mood swings are terrifying – this whole time I thought it was just people taking advantage of a social license to act crazy, not an actual uncontrollable sucker-punch of irrational emotions. o_o

  9. This was funny and adorable!

    And it also made me so, so thankful that I don’t get my period anymore (it’s all Yasmin all the time at my house).

  10. Also, not to hijack the comments section, but I ran across this comic that is really great that I thought at least some Straddlers would be interested in. It’s called I Do Not Have An Eating Disorder. It’s an ongoing comic (she updates a page every weekend) by an Australian lesbian who is currently in recovery for anorexia and it chronicles her experiences with eating and body image issues (some of which are tied in with her experiences of sexuality and gender expression), as well as self-harm, depression, and suicidal feelings. It’s very powerful and the art is great.

    But if you’ve had experiences with any of these things, it can also be triggering as hell, so be careful!

  11. Whoa, mind blown! I never thought to put the heating pad in the sweatshirt pocket! I was just stuffing it down my underwear right onto the skin where my uterus is. But then it looks like I have this weird-shaped pregnancy bump, and I have to hold the heating pad in place else it falls down my pants.

  12. This afternoon I was sitting on the couch, hot water bottle on my lap, trying to ease some terrible cramps.

    I was bored so I decided to Autostraddle. This was the first article I saw.

    Perfect timing!

    Also, super cute comic!

  13. If your workplace is not casual enough to allow sweatshirts, hot-type salonpas can stick right to your tummy and no one has to know. I keep an emergency stash in my desk.

  14. I never knew I needed a sweatshirt with a center pocket until now… so I don’t own one. Gotta fix that.
    Also the timing of this comic is as creepy and perfect as the anthropomorphized uterus.

  15. I loved everything about this. And also need to know what the hell cookie butter is?! It sounds like a thing I need for my next period.

  16. I didn’t even realize there was no neck until the uterus pointed it out. This was amazing.

  17. I hate that I didn’t notice that Cameron’s cartoon was drawn without a neck until the uterus pointed it out.

    I, like a lot of other folks commenting on this, have just typed a sentence I never thought I’d type.

  18. This will be me in a few days! Bought vegan cookie dough and a bottle of red wine to prepare myself. Oh and pads and tampons and some organic cramp tincture too.

  19. I sent this to my straight, Tolkien-loving little brother in the hopes that he will use this knowledge for good.

Comments are closed.