Graphic novelist Alison Bechdel gave me life when I was forced to take a freshman writing class as a junior in college when I accidentally bought all of the books on the reading list in an outdated curricula from semesters gone by, including what seemed at the time like a highly irregular read: Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. Next to works like John Patrick Shanley's "Doubt," online reading on Abu Ghraib, and a thorough case study on Pruitt-Igoe, the shiny cover of a graphic memoir seemed a little out of place.
Then I read it, and it was transforming.
Now that Bechdel is on my radar, I couldn't be more excited that she's revived her groudbreaking comic strip, Dykes to Watch Out For, even if the current post-election, impending Trump administration is what spurred her to break out her pen again.
Her politically-charged series of comics based on a group of lesbians, "Dykes to Watch Out For," was first penned in 1987 with the strip "One Enchanted Evening," and we haven't seen a development in the series since "Sing, Cucu" at end of the Bush administration. However, she released a new strip on November 23, titled "Pièce du Résistance," and it's just the tone you need to hear when considering Trump and his cabinet: apocalyptic, political, dry, and queer.
While its uncertain if she'll continue creating more episodes, Bechdel did write that the characters "all started flooding back" two weeks ago. And that sounds hopeful enough to me.
Between protests and calls to your state administrators in this post-election world, make sure to check in for a new episode. We hope it reflects your life back at you, because it will likely be real-life people similar to Bechdel's characters who make a positive difference in the coming years.
Who knows? If "Dykes" gets enough attention and makes it onto Broadway like Fun Home, Mike Pence might just come see it. Wouldn't that be nice.
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