Alison Bechdel: Difference between revisions
No edit summary |
No edit summary |
||
| Line 40: | Line 40: | ||
[[Category:Comic strip cartoonists|Bechdel, Alison]] |
[[Category:Comic strip cartoonists|Bechdel, Alison]] |
||
[[Category:Lesbian artists|Bechdel, Alison]] |
[[Category:Lesbian artists|Bechdel, Alison]] |
||
[[Category:Lesbian writers|Bechdel, Alison]] |
|||
[[Category:People from Vermont|Bechdel, Alison]] |
[[Category:People from Vermont|Bechdel, Alison]] |
||
[[Category:Women in comics|Bechdel, Alison]] |
[[Category:Women in comics|Bechdel, Alison]] |
||
Revision as of 19:11, 12 June 2006
Alison Bechdel (born September 10, 1960) is an American cartoonist best known for the comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For, which chronicles the lives of several lesbians and their friends.
Alison Bechdel was born in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania to a Catholic family of teachers. In 1981 she graduated from Oberlin College, having transferred from Simon's Rock College, and moved to New York City, New York. She applied to many art schools but was rejected and worked in a number of office jobs in the publishing industry.
According to The Indelible Alison Bechdel (see "Books", below), she began Dykes to Watch Out For as a single drawing labeled "Marianne, dissatisfied with the morning brew: Dykes to Watch Out For, plate no. 27". An acquaintance recommended she send her work to Womannews newspaper, which began to publish the strip regularly beginning with the July-August 1983 issue. After a year, other outlets began running the strip.
In the first years, Dykes to Watch Out For consisted of unconnected strips without a regular cast or serialized storyline. Bechdel introduced her regular characters, Mo and her friends, in 1987 while living in St. Paul, Minnesota. She became a full-time cartoonist in 1990 and later moved near Burlington, Vermont, where she met her partner, writer Amy Rubin, in 1992.
In addition to Dykes to Watch Out For, Bechdel has also written and drawn autobiographical strips and has done illustrations for magazines and websites. She has recently published an autobiographical "tragicomic" chronicling her barren childhood and the years before and after her father's suicide called Fun Home.
Bechdel's brother, John Bechdel, is currently the keyboard player for the industrial metal band Ministry as of February 2006.
Books
- Dykes to Watch Out For (Firebrand Books, 1986, ISBN 0-932379-17-6)
- More Dykes to Watch Out For (Firebrand Books, 1988, ISBN 0-932379-45-1)
- New Improved! Dykes to Watch Out For (Firebrand Books, 1990, ISBN 1-932379-6)
- Dykes to Watch Out For: The Sequel (Firebrand Books, 1992, ISBN 1-56341-008-7)
- Spawn of Dykes to Watch Out For (Firebrand Books, 1993, ISBN 1-56341-039-7)
- Unnatural Dykes to Watch Out For (Firebrand Books, 1995, ISBN 1-56341-067-2)
- Split-Level Dykes to Watch Out For (Firebrand Books, 1998, ISBN 1-56341-102-4)
- Hot, Throbbing Dykes to Watch Out For (Firebrand Books, 1997, ISBN 1-56341-086-9)
- The Indelible Alison Bechdel: Confessions, Comix, and Miscellaneous Dykes to Watch Out For (Firebrand Books, 1998)
- Post-Dykes to Watch Out For (Firebrand Books, 2000, ISBN 1-56341-122-9)
- Dykes and Sundry Other Carbon-Based Life-Forms to Watch Out For (Alyson Publications, 2003, ISBN 1-55583-828-6)
- Invasion of the Dykes to Watch Out For (Alyson Publications, 2005, ISBN 1-55583-833-2)
- Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (Houghton Mifflin, 2006)