Alison Bechdel
Her comics brought lesbian everyday life to a wide readership, while “Fun Home” transformed family memoir into graphic art.
Alison Bechdel was born in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, in 1960. She grew up in a family that ran a funeral home and came out as a lesbian while studying at Oberlin College.
Her comic strip “Dykes to Watch Out For” ran from 1983 to 2008, following a group of mostly lesbian friends through relationships, work and politics. A 1985 episode proposed a simple rule for choosing films: at least two women must talk to each other about something other than a man. Bechdel credited her friend Liz Wallace with the idea that became known as the Bechdel test.
“Fun Home” (2006) explores her relationship with her father, his hidden relationships with men and his death in 1980. The book considers the possibility of suicide without resolving it. Its precise drawings and layered literary references helped establish graphic memoir as a form capable of telling complex family histories. The musical adaptation won five Tony Awards in 2015, including Best Musical.
Bechdel received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2014. Her later books include “Are You My Mother?” (2012), about her relationship with her mother, and “The Secret to Superhuman Strength” (2021), which approaches the search for self-understanding through a lifelong fascination with exercise.