Allison Bechdel's home page

I have only recently read Allison Bechdel's _Fun House_, which we'll be reading in the spring as the "anchor" book (that is, the one we'll all read and discuss AS a class, as a model) for our unit on the autobiographical/memoir as a genre or area of concern within the overall world of graphic novels. That's no small thing in our study, since I'd argue--I'm gonna argue, starting the third week of January--that the memoir/autobiography is the most potent form of graphic novels: I think of Harvey Pekar, Ariel Schrag, Gene Yang, and I can't get past thinking this is where much of the best of the work is.

But then there's all the other work--like Tomine's, which is closer to true fiction; and like Spiegelman's and Satrapi's.

Bechdel made her name on her long-running strip, _Dykes to Watch Out For_. In an interview she underscores the multiple suggestions in that very title, and that is part of the richness of her work: she is no reductionist when it comes to human behavior. Here's a link to the _Dykes_ site:

Dykes to Watch Out For