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Newspaper legend, cartoonist, author and LGBTQ icon Alison Bechdel (Photo by Elena Seibert) |
I’ve interviewed Lambda Literary Award-winning
cartoonist and author Alison Bechdel – whose groundbreaking biweekly comic
strip Dykes to Watch Out For was syndicated in over 70 alternative newspapers around
the world for 25 years – many times over the years, and she always gives good
quote.
See for yourself
when Bechdel will discuss her creative process and latest graphic
memoir, Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama, in a visual presentation in Montreal on April 12.
Bechdel’s Are
You My Mother? is a graphic memoir about her own Mom. In fact, back
in 2003, before Alison retired her Dykes to Watch Out For cartoon strip, she told me, “I never
thought this would be my career. When I started out my mom was not happy. Her
first response was, ‘You’re not going to do this under your own name, are you?’
She came around, though, and is now really supportive. She says she’s proud of
me."
Are You My Mother? is a sequel to her 2006 bestselling
memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic which told the true story of
Bechdel’s coming out, as well as the discovery that her own father was gay.
Fun Home was eventually
named a Best Book of the Year by Time, Entertainment Weekly, New York Times, People, USA
Today, Los Angeles Times, Village Voice and The San Francisco Chronicle, but when
the book was first published, Alison admitted she was nervous.
