Lesbian cartoonist comes out of the 'box' at U-M

ANN ARBOR – Over the past two decades both avid and casual readers of Alison Bechdel's syndicated comic strip "Dykes to Watch Out For" have likely picked up the latest installment and asked themselves the same question: What on earth is going on?
Not even Bechdel can answer that one.
"I write the thing from week to week," she told an audience of 120 during her National Coming Out Week keynote address at the University of Michigan Oct. 10. "I can barely keep track of it."
It's not that "Dykes" is particularly hard to follow. But the characters inhabiting those neatly drawn panels every week are brought, quite literally, to life by Bechdel. If you don't read it, "Dykes" goes on without you. And if you do read it, well, just like in real life, Bechdel's characters do things and make decisions that aren't easily explained.
For fans, it can be difficult seeing a couple like Clarice and Toni having trouble or watching as Sydney cheats on Mo. Again, don't ask Bechdel why they do it. "I don't know what is going on," she said as she introduced her characters and talked about the history of the strip.
"When I started out I felt like what I was doing was really deviant and radical," she said.
But as lesbianism has become less radical – though hardly less politicized – Bechdel has kept the strip lively by addressing, and often challenging, issues in the LGBTQ world through her characters.
Take Janis, for example, the trans-identified teen formerly known as Jonas. "It's been really challenging to write about her process," said Bechdel, who has been accused by some readers of making the character's transition too "rosy."
Then there's Cynthia, the conservative lesbian college student who inexplicably hooks up with a lefty vegan. "I have to really investigate conservative ideas to write her character," said Bechdel.
One of her most controversial characters has been Stuart. Stuart is currently partnered with Sparrow who was previously with a woman. "When I first started doing this strip I couldn't even imagine one of my characters with a man," said Bechdel. In fact, she didn't even have male characters at first. Bechdel said she introduced Stuart when she was getting fed up with the conservative shift in gay and lesbian politics. She said she felt at the time like she had more in common with this straight, male, feminist man than with modern day lesbians.
Bechdel also spoke about and read excerpts from her new illustrated memoir "Fun Home." The book chronicles her childhood experience with her father, a closeted gay man who died when she was in college. The book has received rave reviews and has nudged Bechdel into the mainstream spotlight – as well as her family.
"It's been kind of difficult," Bechdel said about the reaction of her family to the book during the evening's Q&A session.
"I thought I was going about it in a very responsible way," she said. "Somehow I thought that meant it was going to be okay."
"I didn't want the book itself to be therapy," she said. "I felt like I sort of had it figured out." But while Bechdel had spent years grappling with her personal history and was ready to go public, it wasn't necessarily so for the rest of her family.
Unlike "Dykes," Bechdel's relatives have read "Fun Home" and some have let their displeasure be known. Recently her hometown newspaper did a piece Bechdel described as "exploitative," upsetting her mother.
"I was deluded. I thought I could write responsibly about my mother's life, my brother's life," she said, adding that there's something hostile about writing about someone else's experience.
"So it's been pretty bad. Thanks for asking," she said.
That's not to say the book wasn't worth doing, however. "It was about claiming my own power as an artist, which was something I'd always denied," she said, adding that her father always wanted her to be an artist.
For more information visit http://www.dykestowatchoutfor.com.