YMMV / The Sculptor

• Harsher in Hindsight: Several such moments were later noted by Scott McCloud in a 2016 blog post.
  • One of David's rogue sculptures is an obese vomiting baby, built right at the base of Trump Tower◊. Back then it wasn't meant to be a political statement, but...
  • A passing line about◊ how Ms. Hammer's Ukrainian assistant would be annoyed to hear themselves called Russian reads as darker after the Russian Annexation of Crimea, followed several years later by Russia launching a full scale invasion of Ukraine.
  • Towards the end of the story, Meg suddenly dies from a car collision. In 2022, Scott McCloud’s wife Ivy, who heavily inspired the character, died in a car crash.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: An incident where David and Meg see several naked women protesting on 5th Avenue◊, supposedly spurned by "something said in Rome" was envisioned as a backlash against the conservative Pope Benedict but now might read as a reversed implication with the succeeding Pope Francis.
• Jerkass Woobie: David is an asshole when we first meet him, yelling at a waitress and saying her cousin is a "nobody", but on the other hand his life is more or less in shambles. He continues to be a bit of a dysfunctional jerk as the plot unravels, but still qualifies as this because he's dying.
• Strawman Has a Point: David’s landlord is portrayed as a bully with mob connections who treats his tenant like trash, but he arguably has a good reason for evicting David in that one of the artist’s heavy sculptures broke the apartment floor and nearly killed someone right below.

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