Katie Langlois’s (@katiellanglois) Instagram bio is everything she isn’t: “blonde skinny rich.” But the 26-year-old Haverhill artist’s work illustrates the female form in many ways mainstream media typically doesn’t: plus-size, makeup-free, unplucked. The Globe chatted with Langlois about her icons, representation, and feeling like a baby.
Q. Some of the icons you list on your account include Miss Piggy from “The Muppet Show” and Lola Bunny from “Looney Tunes.” What do you like about those characters?
A. I feel like a lot of times, when women are in any sort of field, they’re very standard. It can be a small, maybe quiet-ish woman. And a lot of [the characters I’ve selected] are just different. I know a lot of women who are comic illustrators and do art and stuff, but a lot of times different bodies and different aesthetics aren’t represented, at least from what I’ve seen in mainstream stuff. I am a plus-size girl, and a lot of my work consists of myself as I am. I always get concerned when people see it because — well, not concerned, but I just don’t know if people are gonna be offended by [my work] or anything like that. But at the same time, they shouldn’t because there are a lot of different mediums that have plus-size girls and just, like, “This is a pretty picture.” Sometimes I don’t feel pretty, and I really don’t care to represent myself that way.
Q. Do you feel like the character you draw in your strip is autobiographical or fictional or somewhere in between?
A. I see it as myself but just maybe hyperbolized a little bit, not appearance-wise but content-wise. I use comedy as not a defense mechanism, but as a way of trying to push the boundaries of how I’m feeling. I guess it is a defense mechanism because it does help and my drawings were therapeutic for me at the time. Drawing myself as I see what’s going on in my head helps. I try to keep it consistent in a way [where] it doesn’t look like I’m making fun of myself, but I am. But not because of my body, but because of how I’m feeling.
Q. What does it mean to you to draw a figure that’s plus-size and unshaven?
A. When I draw myself, I kinda just wanna reject the way that people see fat bodies in art, as it is now. A lot of the times, I’ll see artwork of fat women, fat any person, and it’s in a glamorous way or a very soft and approachable way. I think it was subconscious, the body hair thing. As I progressed with it, I was like, “You know what, no, I’m a big girl. I know that, and I don’t want to be seen as [though] I have to be super hyperfeminine all the time.” In my everyday life, I do wear makeup, but I make it a point in my drawings to not do that.
Q. Cartoonist Cathy Guisewite had recurring themes that resonated with women who came of age when she did (diet culture, women entering the workplace). Your work often touches on challenges millennial women grapple with (self-love, being adults but being infantilized). Is that a conscious choice?
A. I think it might be a little bit of both because a lot of times I do just feel like a big baby that’s just walking around trying to figure out what’s going on. But at the same time, I do think it’s a conscious decision because a lot of people I know feel that way, and I just want it to be represented. [To] be like, “Hey, me too.”
Interview was edited and condensed. Jenni Todd can be reached at jenni.todd@globe.com.