When Womannews Newspaper began publishing the assorted one panel cartoons of the then relatively new cartoonist Alison Bechdel in 1983, no one could have imagined what these rough drawings would become. Now, 13 comic compilations and later a bio comic masterpiece, (Family Fun Home) Bechdel has made a name for herself and created a recognizable visual representation of the lesbian community in celebrated comics for close to thirty years.
I remember coming across a copy of Hot Throbbing Dykes To Watch Out For on my best friend’s apartment floor in the early High School years. The book married my two passions of the time: dykes, and comics. I read it through cover to cover without breaking, completely hooked on the characters with my head swimming in politics. It was a special kind of love; the fondness for these characters and stories never fails to lift me up no matter how bad the political or emotional dramas were playing out in my own life.
Dykes to Watch Out For is merciless in its political entanglements, the politics of the time are as real and present in the everyday lives of the characters as it is in the minds and hearts of the readers. Frequently the situations leave the characters gasping for a breath of fresh air from the political circus that governs them.
The characters in Bechdel’s panels span a spectrum of race, gender, class, and political stance. Unique to the strip, Bechdel represents many characters of colour and incorporates ethnic traits by way of their personalities, not just by shading their faces. You don’t often encounter that sort of detail in the comic world.
Of course one of the more significant visual merits of Bechdels strip is her representation of members of the lesbian community as they are. Dykes have always had their own way of walking and talking, their own methods of seduction and frustration, their own views of the world and what it’s really all about. They wear Birkenstocks and own multiple cats, work at book stores, hold degrees in sociology, invest in sex toys and drag kinging. They march in political rally’s, discover the awkward middle ground between parental acceptance of long term partners, wrestle with questions of artificial insemination, and the question of settling down at all. In short these characters are your lovers, best friends, the rugby players you knew in high school and the campaigners on your doorstep. These comics grant a glimpse into the lives of real-life Lesbians, not the prime-time femme-girl on femme-girl niceties portrayed on mainstream television (L Word).
The recent compilation, The Essential Dykes To Watch Out For covers the comings and goings of 22 plus characters from the last thirty years of print. You will laugh, oh yes, you will laugh, at the unintentional ironies and too true coincidences; you will cry, and feel the companionship.
Alison Bechdel has done her homework, so it is worth taking the time to sit down and let yourself meet some new community members as they have, in effect, become. I know they will always be friends of mine, and they remain just as enthralling to me as they were on the hardwood floor years ago. Give a copy to your newest baby dyke, they will appreciate it immensely.
