Daughter’s figure is what mom’s used to be, so mom has her try it on to show the intended effect — and thanks her for the memory of how she used to look. The problem is, we don’t see the mom wearing it full length to see the contrast — and the drawing barely differentiates the two women anyway. Even if the strip has established them as mom and daughter, the joke requires a frankly sexist comparison of bodies.
I related to this comic, only instead of comparing mother to daughter, I compared my young self to my today self, as I was recently looking at photos of myself as a hippie, back in the 1960s and 1970s.
Besides differentiating the two characters, I had problems with the order of the panels. By mistake, I first read them in 1-2-5-3-4 order, and it really did not help at all that the daughter put her long hair up into a bun for the fifth panel.
We have recently seen Jill (I think that’s the mom’s name) in dialogue with her younger self, so that was indeed a natural interpretation, until the logic forced the realization that it is Amy (if that’s this daughter) wearing the dress in the last panel.
I’d say maybe HALF sarcastic and half genuinely appreciative for the help.
Thanks, I knew I was on thin ice about identifying the daughters. There was recently a sequence with both girls going out on dates at the same time, and trying to differentiate them by their attitudes and reactions. And did that successfully, I guess, but didn’t actually help cement their names for me.
Comics I Don't Understand 
Daughter’s figure is what mom’s used to be, so mom has her try it on to show the intended effect — and thanks her for the memory of how she used to look. The problem is, we don’t see the mom wearing it full length to see the contrast — and the drawing barely differentiates the two women anyway. Even if the strip has established them as mom and daughter, the joke requires a frankly sexist comparison of bodies.
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I agree, except that I think, “Thanks for the reminder” is meant to be sarcastic.
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Oh. I didn’t notice the dress had jumped from Mom to Daughter. Partly because, as MinorAnnoyance points out, we never see Mom in the dress.
Handy that Daughter is exactly the same size Mom used to be, I guess.
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I related to this comic, only instead of comparing mother to daughter, I compared my young self to my today self, as I was recently looking at photos of myself as a hippie, back in the 1960s and 1970s.
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Besides differentiating the two characters, I had problems with the order of the panels. By mistake, I first read them in 1-2-5-3-4 order, and it really did not help at all that the daughter put her long hair up into a bun for the fifth panel.
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Perky boobs versus sagging boobs?
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We have recently seen Jill (I think that’s the mom’s name) in dialogue with her younger self, so that was indeed a natural interpretation, until the logic forced the realization that it is Amy (if that’s this daughter) wearing the dress in the last panel.
I’d say maybe HALF sarcastic and half genuinely appreciative for the help.
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Pretty sure that’s Jess, the younger daughter. I think we saw Amy in a different strip posted here a few days ago.
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Thanks, I knew I was on thin ice about identifying the daughters. There was recently a sequence with both girls going out on dates at the same time, and trying to differentiate them by their attitudes and reactions. And did that successfully, I guess, but didn’t actually help cement their names for me.
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The “Things have, uh, shifted.” line remind me of this old joke that I heard when I was a kid:
I used to have 45-inch hips. Then I started drinking low-fat milk. Now I have 45-inch ankles!
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