Comic Book Resources

A Month of Good LGBT Comics - Dykes to Watch Out For

In conjunction with Prism Comics, the preeminent website for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) comics and creators, every day this month I will be detailing one good comic book/graphic novel with LGBT themes.

Here's an archive of the featured works so far!

Today we look at one of the most acclaimed and long-lasting comic strips out there!

Alison Bechdel has been producing Dykes to Watch Out For since 1983, and ever since it began it has been a striking strip, with it's mixture of humor, characterizations and topical discussions.

The book follows a diverse cast of characters (with a lesbian named Mo as more or less the main character), and while Bechdel has allowed their lives to develop in a serial narrative, the strips also tend to revolve around the characters reacting to whatever topic Bechdel feels like writing about.

It's really a fascinating strip, and it is to Bechdel's credit that it all flows so very naturally, and has done so for literally decades.

Check out how many collections of the strips there are!!

Currently, Bechdel is touring in support of the Essential Dykes to Watch Out For.

The strip is actually on hiatus right now, as Bechdel is working on her next graphic novel (her last graphic novel was the amazing memoir, Fun Home, which I featured earlier this month here).

Here are the last three strips before the hiatus...

Bechdel has also become a part of the pop culture lexicon with this strip from early in the strip's run (before she even had settled on a serial storyline approach - these earlier strips were with nameless characters just talking)....

The "rule" here is not one of Bechdel's creation (she credits in the strip the friend she heard it from), but it has been a very popular "rule" in discussing films.

Here is a link to Bechdel's site, where she has a strip archive and a handy dandy guide to the characters in the comic!