The Essential Dykes To Watch Out For

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Mo, haven’t you done anything less progressive?... You must have done some work with little or no redeeming social value? ELLEN FINN: Yeah. It's pretty clear from your graphic memoir, Fun Home, and even just the bold title of your strip-- you know, Dykes to Watch Out For-- that you've been out as a lesbian from a young age and didn't shy away from the complexity and intimacy of your gay identity in your work. I'm just curious, do you have any advice for people who are struggling to be out these days? ELLEN FINN: Let me just say, I was a teenager growing up in northern California when I first read the comic Dykes to Watch Out For. I was 17. I was barely out of the closet, and the strip portrayed Minneapolis as some sort of lesbian utopia.

ELLEN FINN: That's fantastic. I can't wait to see that. Well, thanks so much for the work that you've done. It really has changed my and many people I know lives. So thank you so much, Alison. Don’t miss Audible’s hottest new queer original, Alison Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For! Coming out...just in time for Pride. Even the Dog Is Ashamed: In the strip where Mo confronts Sydney about selling stories of their sex life to a magazine, the last panel shows their two cats glaring at Sydney. Relationships: Unfortunate bystander turned participant in Ana and Gloria’s relationship meltdown, friend and confidante to Raffi. Sparrow: Oh my God! I bet my mom did this! Ever since I came out to her about Stuart she thinks it means I’m straight. She can’t understand that I’m a bisexual lesbian!Lois MacGiver, a sex-positive activist, drag king, also a book clerk at both stores. Lois is housemate to Ginger and Sparrow, and dates single mother Jasmine, mother of transgender teenager Janis (originally introduced as Jonas). I felt grateful to have that exposure to death as a routine fact of life because most people don’t have that but I continue to grapple with my own mortality. Married to the Job: Evil academic Sydney, whilst researching polyamory, has the epiphany that she is in a polyamorous relationship already — her work is her primary relationship, while Mo is "the other woman". This also happens with Clarice and Toni, with Clarice's job as a lawyer almost immediately putting a strain on the relationship; and ultimately, when Toni cheats on Clarice, it's with Gloria, with whom she's buried in Freedom to Marry activism. Even a few years ago I was saying: “Oh, it’s so hard to convince people how hostile the culture was towards us when we were young,” but now it’s gone off the rails. All these anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ bills that are being passed – it’s crazy. I don’t want to feed into the people who are sure there’s going to be a civil war. I could easily work up that anxiety, and sometimes in my worst moments I do. I also don’t want to take away the sense of urgency. We’ve got to be vigilant. Mistaken for Cheating: One arc centers around Mo and Sydney being told separately by friends that they think their partner is cheating on them. It eventually turns out that both of them were consensually engaging in roleplay with each other over online voice chat, but their friends overheard and misunderstood, causing them both to think there was a third party involved.

Jezanna Ramsay (birth name Alberta), owner-manager of Madwimmin Books. After its demise, she taught English as a second language. Set by Bluekai, this cookie stores anonymized data about the users' web usage in an aggregate form to build a profile for targeted advertising. In this book we get lots of gentle and not so very gentle spoofing of the entire world of right on gay women (and right on left politics in general). The issue of transgendering ( I think it bites that you can’t go to your friends’ annual sweat lodge and Tupperware party anymore just because you’re a guy now) comes up tangentially (it would have been given way more air time if these comics had been written now), as does gay marriage, gay adoption, drag king balls, lesbian bed death, it’s all here. And it could only be spoofed like this from the inside. AB: I mean, it would be great to see more trans and non-binary stories, more stories by people of color and immigrants and non-US authors. But you know, queer stories are just human stories and a good story is a good story. So, if you have a good story, I wanna hear it.

Occupation: Some vaguely science-related job at Sydney’s university; also teaching Arabic to neo-Conservative, CIA-bound student Cynthia Before we wrap up—we talked about the collaboration process but with Audible everything is sound. What do you think about Dykes to Watch Out For lends itself to being an audio production? You mentioned how you wish there could be a sound effect and look—now we have that opportunity.

Bechdel self-syndicated Dykes to Watch Out For for twenty-five years, from 1983 to 2008. The award-winning generational chronicle has been called “one of the pre-eminent oeuvres in the comics genre, period.” ( Ms. magazine) ELLEN FINN: Wow. What do you make of people who say your characters are maybe not only the first lesbians that they met in their life, but their role models? Has a Type: Both her last boyfriend before coming out and her current male partner look a LOT like Richard Dryfus. AR: Jane Lynch and Carrie Brownstein—those two names alone, so exciting. Tell me about some of the other actors that we're gonna see bring Dykes to Watch Out For to new life. Quirks: Crunchier and more organic than sustainably-grown, unsalted amaranth puffs with nutritional yeast and spirulina.

Synopsis

As I listened to this new take on classic queer characters, I found myself laughing, tearing up, and even getting chills at the emotional depth of the performances. Dykes to Watch Out For is a must-listen for anyone interested queer history, found family, and lesbian culture. Did you know? Author Tract: Bechdel describes the strip as "half op-ed column and half endless serialized Victorian novel," and true to form nearly every strip has some political ranting done by the characters. The angriest sentiments are given a lot of Self-Deprecation - Mo and Clarice always have someone nearby to point out that their excessive anger is not helping anything.