 The subject of Drowning Girl is an example of Lichtenstein 's post @-@ 1963 comics @-@ based women who " look hard , crisp , brittle , and uniformly modish in appearance , as if they all came out of the same pot of makeup . " In the early 1960s , Lichtenstein produced several " fantasy drama " paintings of women in love affairs with domineering men causing women to be miserable , such as Drowning Girl , Hopeless and In the Car . These works served as prelude to 1964 paintings of innocent " girls next door " in a variety of tenuous emotional states . " In Hopeless and Drowning Girl , for example , the heroines appear as victims of unhappy love affairs , with one displaying helplessness ... and the other defiance ( she would rather drown than ask for her lover 's help ) . " Drowning Girl , the aforementioned works and Oh , Jeff ... I Love You , Too ... But ... are among those tragedies that make the author a popular draw at museums . 
