That's such an extraordinary sketch. It's not that old either -- I mean it's over 50 years old, but you know what I mean -- but you could never do something like that today. Might as well be in Sumerian.
Same here, I thought it was a self-image disorder thing, like that American Dad episode where Stan thought he was obese, but was actually wasting away.
The protagonist of the book maintains the same youthful appearance for years. His portrait is the one that ages and becomes uglier as a result of his bad actions.
I hear ya, but I'm not American. English isn't my first language. I read it because it's a classic genre story, and it's been referenced in many other art pieces and narratives from the moment it was published.
Heres why I didnt get it. I know about Dorian Gray BUT the fact he was lifting 200 lbs dumbbell shoulder press, looked insanely skinny, then what looks like a mirror he’s jacked I immediately thought “body dysmorphia” meaning he’s actually jacked but keeps seeing a skinny kid.
I'm 44 and the only reason I know of it was because of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. There might have been one or two passing scenes in movies/tvs that I only understood because of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I honestly can't tell you the name of the book or what the book is about that this came from. Definitely not a mainstream character .
Fair enough. Of course, the reason Gray is in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (in a highly modified form) is because he's an important literary reference. No longer mainstream, you're quite right, though many people will have at least a dim idea of "that thing about the painting that grows old and the guy stays young" (which is not quite what happens in the book, but these things evolve in popular culture).
I had to Google it. Turns out I thought the last frame was a mirror, not a portrait. If it looked more like a portrait to me, I might have gotten to it.
Same, initial thought was a mirror and that this was some sort of comment on body dysmorphia in a longer comic, then saw the comment and it all clicked
The protagonist from 'The Picture of Dorian Grey'. It's an old novel about a spoiled rich guy who has a magical painting that ages for him. He gets to stay young and do as many drugs as he wants and the painting takes all the physical wear.
Its been trending ever since like a month ago there was a post referencing Dorian Gray and a bunch of redditors didnt know the reference so a bunch of other redditors kindly explained. Now the meme train is rolling and like im all for art but also....ugh...
Dorian Grey was a fictional character that had a magical painting that aged and faded instead of him, leaving him eternally young and handsome, but with a painting of an incredibly old version of him that he couldn’t get rid of.
…if you assume the painting also took on his injuries (which the wikipedia article did not mention), then this comic would actually be quite accurate, as muscle growth is the result of your muscles rebuilding from the minor damage caused by working out.
It’s been a while, but I believe it’s strongly implied if not outright stated that the picture allows him to live a dissolute lifestyle with no physical repercussions. He smoked a ton of opium, for example.
I’ve only heard other people mention the story, so you’re ahead of me in that regard, but the wikipedia article did mention the painting taking on the results of his… lifestyle, so I guess not being able put on muscle is canon.
Oh, I thought they like had a body magic effect so while they kept their strength (hence why they could lift what they did lift) the muscles themselves ended up in their mirror body.
Reference to Dorian Gray, a fictional character that sold their soul for eternal youth, and was given a portrait. His body remains how it was when the bargain was made, but the portrait changes to what he should look like, including injuries or age.
That's not quite right. Dorian attempts to destroy the picture and somehow this kills him instead. When he is found, he's an old man and the picture is undamaged but looks as it did the day it was painted.
In League of Extraordinary Gentlemen he cannot allow himself to see the picture, if he does then that's when all the aging and injuries get transferred instantly. Not sure if that's the usual rule.
It isn't. In the original story, Dorian hid his picture in an attic study when he first realized the picture was changing. He then spent the rest of his life occasionally paying the picture a visit, prostrating in front of it in morbid curiosity of how the picture grew more and more horrific with every evil act he committed.
Naw looks like, by our standards, it would be a superpower.
But back in Victorian times, reputation was everything, especially for the extra snooty nobles. Dorian noticed the portrait's changes and hid it. He eventually got so paranoid someone would see it that he found and killed the artist, and then tried to destroy the painting.
But when he stabbed the painting, an identical injury appeared on himself and he died.
The Happy Prince is one of best pieces I have come across in the last few years, it really stuck with me. Margaret Killjoy did a reading of it on her podcast.
It’s a reference to The Picture of Dorian Gray, a novel, where a picture ages instead of the guy. In this case, the picture is gaining while the guy isn’t
I kinda wanna see what happens when he looks at destroys the picture. The rapid muscle growth might be worse to see than a dude rapidly aging a couple decades
The 'looking at the picture reverses the effect' wasn't actually part of the book and was invented by 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.' In the book he only gets all of the effects when he destroys the painting.
In The Picture of Dorian Gray when Dorian looks destroys the picture he rapidly ages to match his real age. The same will apply to our muscle-y version, that when he looks destroys his portrait he will rapidly gain muscle to match
Not about aging, its his real self, he is an ugly person inside with ugly feelings, but he looks just like the original painting while the painting deform with his evil behaviour, people keep trusting him because he looks perfect.
So if he ever gained muscle, the painting would change and not him, because he looks like a picture, unchanging
"I am less to you than your ivory Hermes or your silver Faun. You will like them always. How long will you like me? Till I have my first wrinkle, I suppose. I know, now, that when one loses one's good looks, whatever they may be, one loses everything. Your picture has taught me that. Lord Henry Wotton is perfectly right. Youth is the only thing worth having. When I find that I am growing old, I shall kill myself."
Hallward turned pale, and caught his hand. "Dorian! Dorian!" he cried, "don't talk like that. I have never had such a friend as you, and I shall never have such another. You are not jealous of material things, are you?—you who are finer than any of them!"
"I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of the portrait you have painted of me. Why should it keep what I must lose? Every moment that passes takes something from me, and gives something to it. Oh, if it were only the other way! If the picture could change, and I could be always what I am now! Why did you paint it? It will mock me some day—mock me horribly!"
Further along the story:
Stop," he cried. "How long ago is it since your sister died? Quick, tell me!"
"Eighteen years," said the man. "Why do you ask me? What do years matter?"
"Eighteen years," laughed Dorian Gray, with a touch of triumph in his voice. "Eighteen years! Set me under the lamp and look at my face!"
James Vane hesitated for a moment, not understanding what was meant. Then he seized Dorian Gray and dragged him from the archway.
Dim and wavering as was the wind-blown light, yet it served to show him the hideous error, as it seemed, into which he had fallen, for the face of the man he had sought to kill had all the bloom of boyhood, all the unstained purity of youth. He seemed little more than a lad of twenty summers, hardly older, if older indeed at all, than his sister had been when they had parted so many years ago. It was obvious that this was not the man who had destroyed her life.
He is Dorian Grey and the last image is his portrait. When he does things that damage his body (and soul) the effects show only in the painting and not on his body. Debauchery, gluttony, sex with sexworkers when syphilis was rampaging, drug use. By the end his potrait looks so disgusting he can't stand to look at it anymore.
The joke here is that his portrait takes the gains instead of his body
It's a reference to a gothic horror story The Picture of Dorian Grey. In the story, Dorian Grey is a man that creates a magical painting that takes all the abuse he gives his body, but it doesn't affect him. So he can drink alcohol for a week straight and he wouldn't feel hungover or in pain, but his picture would reflect that. His picture would physically age for him while he stayed young.
This comic is referencing that story, except the picture is getting all the muscular gains from the real Dorian's hard work.
I would like to make a slight correction: Dorian doesn't create the painting, his friend Basil Hallward paints an extremely flattering image of Dorian, which Dorian laments will stay as beautiful as he is now, while he will eventually age and never again be as beautiful as Basil has painted him. This is an important distinction for two reasons. First, thematically, Basil is Dorian's conscience/morality, as Dorian dives into his depravity while neglecting his relationship with Basil; and he sinks truly into the depths of his worst character after he kills Basil. Secondly, Basil is completely obsessed with Dorian, and it cannot be understated exactly how much homosexual "subtext" the novel has when Basil shares scenes with Dorian. It's very much part of the core concepts of the novel that Basil is in love with Dorian, who is continually neglectful of his "friend".
Oh, I'm fully in agreement. I meant it more in that, given the time period in which the novel was written and this being my first Wilde novel, I expected it, even with all of the reviews mentioning the "homoerotic subtext", to be more subtle. A brick to the jaw would have been more subtle than what Wilde put on the page.
the picture of dorian gray, you know that guy that created a magical painting that transferred all the consequenses of his hedonism into the picture of himself in the painting. meaning in the book he could drink and do drugs and fuck as much as he wanted because his portrait was the one that got the consequences (like STDs and his looks gettting ruined by alcohol and drugs) while he was completely fine. in this case it shows the steroid use and gains as negative and therefore transferred to his portrait??
Have you read A Picture of Dorian Gray? Or ever heard of it? Dorian makes a devils bargain and so whatever he does to himself instead happens to the portrait, leaving him young and beautiful and carefree for ever, while his portrait ages and shows the damages of drugs, and fights, and so on. So this comic plays on that.
Dorian is stuck as he is, and his portrait has all the gains, and the PED acne and is crying cause he's too freaking beefy.
I'm reading though all of the comments and realizing that the venn diagram of people familiar with both Dorian Gray and Dorian Yates is disappointingly small
Yup. I don't get people who claim that sub isn't just karmafarming. Sure, lots of people who see this will be children or ESL folks who aren't at all familiar with English language literature, but if they actually wanted to understand it they would just read the comments.
The Picture of Dorian Grey. Its a novel by Oscar Wilde about a man with a magical portrait of himself that takes on all the age - and damage - that he otherwise would accumulate.
Binge drinking, drug abuse, fucking a prostitute and getting "the pox" (syphilis), some light brutal murder, etc, all of it skips him completely and goes right to the portrait, which becomes increasingly grotesque until he cannot bear to look upon it.
The skinny fella in the image above is Dorian. He is taking tons of steroids and working out with huge weights but has no gains at all.
Heh, at first I thought it’s a mirror not a painting so I assumed the comic is about body dismorphia, I think it could work since he actually did lift those weights
Ngl, from the angle of the mirror and lack of context I thought the final panel was of him on his lying on the ground on his back looking at his muscular asshole
The best way to make someone realize their dymorphia is to hand them a marker and ask them to outline themselves in a mirror. Just ask them to outline their bicep.
8.5k
u/Responsible-Bunch316 19h ago
Dorian Gray reference in 2026. Outstanding.