Alison Bechdel, carabiners, Flickr, documentary films, and me

 A couple of months ago, I got a request to use this photo I took of the great cartoonist Alison Bechdel at Politics and Prose on May 4, 2012 in a short documentary.

 

 Alexia Lafeuille, the film's producer wrote, "I'm reaching out on behalf of WaterBear (www.waterbear.com), a digital media publisher and free streaming platform dedicated to social-impact content. I'm currently producing a short documentary called 'This History of the Carabiner'. This multimedia film celebrates the significance and history of the carabiner as a symbol of queer identity and belonging for women and non-binary people."

 Since I shoot these pictures to capture the history of comics and cartoonists, I said yes, and now the film is out. Alexia informed me, "[The History of the Carabiner is] available to stream on WaterBear (you will have to create an account to access, but it's completely free): www.waterbear.com/watch/the-history-of-the-carabiner."

The film is described on the site as follows: "Through a creative blend of mixed-media and charismatic narration balancing humor, sass and historical gravity, discover the queer history of the carabiner in this latest WaterBear Original, directed by Gianna Mazzeo and made in partnership with Nikon. Follow the carabiner’s story, from its humble 1911 climbing roots (thanks, Otto "Rambo" Herzog), to empowering butch mechanics and postal workers in the 60s, becoming a potent signal of identity and attraction in the 80’s (think Tinder, but with hardware) and as a TikTok fashion sensation today."

 Here's my pic, de-colorized, at 4:12:

 

 

and I got a credit in the end. Trust me, it's there...

 

 

I'm absolutely, completely NOT the target audience for the film, but I quite enjoyed it.  I'm glad I said yes, because now I know this film exists AND I may know something about lesbian sexuality if they aren't having us on. Give it a watch.

DC bookstore quoted in audio adaptation of ‘Dykes to Watch Out For’ story

Grace Burke, 23, the manager of Little District Books in Washington, D.C., said that they liked "the accessibility aspect," noting that an audio adaptation would bring the work to people who couldn't interact with visuals. But Mx. Burke has other concerns about the adaptation. "Audible is owned by Amazon," they said. "I don't really mess with Amazon. I think that a lot of queer people relate to that. The types of people who likely engage with Alison Bechdel aren't the types of people who love Amazon and support it unless they have to."

'Dykes to Watch Out For,' Now Holding Forth in Your Headphones

By Maggie Lange

A version of this article appears in print on June 4, 2023, Section ST, Page 9 of the New York edition with the headline: A Lesbian Comic Strip Returns in a New Era.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/01/style/dykes-to-watch-out-for-audible.html

 

Update, 6/4/23: The above quote does not appear in the print version of the story.

The Post runs a blog editorial by a Fun Home non-reader

Alison Bechdel's graphic biography Fun Home offends some college students.  Here's one explaining his reasoning:

I'm a Duke freshman. Here's why I refused to read 'Fun Home.'

It's not about being uncomfortable. It's about being asked to do something that I think is immoral.

By Brian Grasso
PostEverything blog August 25 2015
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/08/25/im-a-duke-freshman-heres-why-i-refused-to-read-fun-home/

Tom Spurgeon ran his thoughts on this today.

May 4: Alison Bechdel at Politics and Prose

Alison Bechdel - Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama

May 4 2012 7:00 pm

In her acclaimed graphic memoir, Fun Home, Bechdel focused on her father, his secret life, and his death. Now she turns to her talented, emotionally repressed mother, exploring the family psychology and the tentative mother-daughter truce the two achieved via D.W. Winnicott , Dr. Seuss, and Bechdel’s own vivid memories.

5015 Connecticut Ave NW
Washington, District Of Columbia
 
I'm planning on being there - Fun Home was a great book.

Marc Singer on teaching Bechdel's Fun Home

Marc Singer is on week 9 of his comics class and teaching Bechdel's Fun Home, which is one of my favorite graphic novels. He's got a much better sense of the formalist art that I ever will though.

Oct 25: Bechdel day at Katzen Arts Center

* 9:00 am – 3:00 pm
* Visiting Writing Series presents Department of Literature Annual Colloquium, featuring Alison Bechdel
* Battelle-Tompkins Atrium

Alison Bechdel, Fun Home

Welcome! Each year, the American University students, faculty, staff, alumni and other members of the greater community come together for one day to explore a great book. Subjects of previous colloquia include Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita.

We invite you to participate in the seventh annual Department of Literature Colloquium, featuring Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel.


About the Author and the Book

Named by Time magazine in 2006 as one of the “10 Best Booksof the Year,” Bechdel’s Fun Home was a finalist for a 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award and the winner of the 2007 Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work. Of Bechdel’s memoir, Amy Bloom has written: “If David Sedaris could draw, and if Bleak House had been a little funnier, you’d have Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home.” Bechdel is also known for her acclaimed, long-running comic strip, Dykes to Watch Out For. A graduate of Oberlin College, she lives near Burlington, Vermont, where she is now completing a second graphic memoir, Love Life: A Case Study. Alison Bechdel’s appearance is sponsored by the Visiting Writers Series and the Bishop McCabe Lecture Series.
Schedule: Sunday, Oct. 25, 2009

Register Online (by Oct. 21)

9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Colloquium in
Battelle-Tompkins Atrium
(Presentations to be announced!)
See Campus Directions/Maps

3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Lecture with Alison Bechdel,
Katzen Arts Center,
Abramson Family Recital Hall

Questions?

Literature
202-885-2971
lit@american.edu
Battelle Tompkins, Room 237

Thanks to Rick Banning for the tip.

OT: Bechdel interview online

Fun Home was one of my favorite books for the year when it came out, and I was picking up the Washington Blade regularly to read Dykes when she was still doing it. Here's an interview - "Bechdel on the Essential Dykes To Watch Out For" by Alex Dueben, Guest Contributor, Thu, April 9th, 2009.

Bechdel, Delgo, Shag and Azur reviews in today's papers

Although the Blade ran Dykes to Watch Out For for years, albeit badly running it years out of date (literally! They were running pre-election cartoons a year after Bush was in office), you'd never know it now. They did run a minor review of the last book today though - "Blah-battling books: Sedaris, Bechdel collections perfect tonics for holiday blues," KATHI WOLFE, Washington Blade December 12, 2008.

Meanwhile the animated film Delgo, which had a really bad trailer in my opinion, isn't getting good reviews either:

"'Delgo': Colorful but Convoluted," Jane Horwitz, Washington Post Friday, December 12, 2008; WE30.

"Something Rotten in the State of Jhamora (Ask Freddie Prinze Jr.)," By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS, New York Times December 12, 2008

French animation comes off slightly better than the Atlantans did:
"'Azur & Asmar': Less Is More," Jen Chaney, Washington Post Friday, December 12, 2008; WE30.

Finally, Shag, who does 1960 cartoony-type paintings and had a show here in DC a couple of years ago that I liked, has one in NYC now - "Art in Review," New York Times December 12, 2008. It's on the second page of the reviews.

Pekar and Bechdel strip on Daily Cross Hatch

Brian Heater's site, Daily Cross Hatch, has a nice piece by Harvey Pekar and Alison Bechdel about a reading tour (probably the one they did in North Carolina). Brian mentioned Harvey Pekar: Conversations, but neglected to note that an interview he did is reprinted in the book. By the way, Bechdel illustrated one of Harvey's strips back in the '80s... Josh Neufeld's got a list.

Comics and Graphic Novels in the Classroom panel report

Literature professors Marc Singer (Howard U) and Michael Wenthe (American U) and I did a short panel at Busboys and Poets on 14th St at the request of PENFaulkner. Lynda Barry, Alison Bechdel and Chris Ware were in the audience and hopefully got some of the buffet supper. My friend, and potential breakout cartoonist for Cul de Sac, Richard Thompson accompanied me and didn't look too glazed over when the talk went academic at times.

I recorded 99% of the panel  - I missed my first question as moderator "Why have comics in the classroom, and how do you do it" was roughly the question. Marc Singer begins replying and the beginning of his reply is cut off too.

After the event, I was able to talk briefly with Lynda Barry who has some very interesting working methods. For her 100 Demons book, which I recommend, she has words written on cards that she pulls at random out of a bag. She then takes the word she's selected and writes other words that it reminds her of. When she has an idea for the strip, she starts writing and drawing it. As she said, 'The first draft is the only draft.' She also talked to Michael and I about her novel Cruddy, saying that she had been trying to write it for nine years on a computer. When she switched to writing with her brush and ink, it was done in under a year, so she feels that for cartoonists the link between moving your hand and thinking is wired into one's brain. Also for Cruddy, the illustrations are finger-painted, using ink, I think.

Lynda was absolutely great to talk to and very encouraging to anyone (including Chris Ware as he related the next night) who approached her. Alison and Chris are fun to talk to as well, and I'd like to spend more time talking comics with Dan Raeburn who's done three booklets and one big book on them. He moderated the talk by the cartoonists on the following night and I'll post on that separately.

Lynda's strips are now being posted on the Drawn & Quarterly blog.

Nov 8-9 PEN/Faulkner Presents: Graphic Novels Party and Program

Obviously - I'll be there.

Nov 8 - PEN/Faulkner "Comics and Graphic novels in the classroom"

A pre-Nov 9th Graphic Novels PEN/Faulkner event will be held at Busboys and Poets Cafe, 1390 V St, NW, WDC featuring professors Marc Singer (Howard), Michael Wenthe (American) and me (not a professor) on "Comics and Graphic Novels in the Classroom." The dinner costs $22.50 and one can rsvp to 202-898-9063 or tpoole@penfaulkner.org. I think that Barry, Bechdel and Ware will be at this event as well as speaking the next day.

Nov 9: PenFaulkner on comics REPOST

Lynda Barry, Alison Bechdel and Chris Ware - Nov. 9, 2007
PenFaulkner Reading series

Tickets are $15.00.

Graphic Novels
Lynda Barry, Chris Ware
Daniel Raeburn, Moderator
Friday, November 9, 8 p.m.

Held at the Aaron and Cecile Goldman Theater of the Washington, DC Jewish Community Center

Lynda Barry

Lynda Barry is a writer and cartoonist whose comic strip “Ernie Pook’s Comeek” celebrates its 30th year in print in 2007. She is the author of The Good Times are Killing Me, which she adapted into a long-running off-Broadway play. The New York Times called her second novel, Cruddy, “a work of terrible beauty.” She received the 2003 William Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album and an American Library Association Alex Award for her book One! Hundred! Demons! She lives and works in southern Wisconsin.

Alison Bechdel

Alison Bechdel’s comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For has become a countercultural institution since it began in 1983. The strip is syndicated in dozens of newspapers, translated into several languages and collected in a series of award-winning books. Utne magazine has listed DTWOF as “one of the greatest hits of the twentieth century.” And Comics Journal says, “Bechdel's art distills the pleasures of Friends and The Nation; we recognize our world in it, with its sorrows and ironies.”
Chris Ware

Chris Ware is the writer and cartoonist of the periodical The ACME Novelty Library. His other works include Jimmy Corrigan — the Smartest Kid on Earth, recipient of an American Book Award, the Guardian First Book Award, and L’Alph Art; The ACME Novelty Datebook Volumes 1 and 2; and Quimby the Mouse. His work has appeared in many national and international art exhibits, including the Whitney Biennial exhibit in 2002. He was recently awarded the Hoi Fellowship by the newly-formed United States Artists. A regular contributor to The New Yorker, Ware is currently at work on two longform graphic novels, Rusty Brown and Building Stories.


Daniel Raeburn is the author of the book Chris Ware. His essays have appeared in The Baffler, Tin House, and The New Yorker. His book about comic books, The Imp of the Perverse, is forthcoming. He teaches creative writing at the University of Chicago.

Nov 9: PenFaulkner on comics

Lynda Barry, Alison Bechdel and Chris Ware - Nov. 9, 2007
PenFaulkner Reading series

Tickets are $15.00.

Graphic Novels
Lynda Barry, Chris Ware
Daniel Raeburn, Moderator
Friday, November 9, 8 p.m.

Held at the Aaron and Cecile Goldman Theater of the Washington, DC Jewish Community Center

Lynda Barry

Lynda Barry is a writer and cartoonist whose comic strip “Ernie Pook’s Comeek” celebrates its 30th year in print in 2007. She is the author of The Good Times are Killing Me, which she adapted into a long-running off-Broadway play. The New York Times called her second novel, Cruddy, “a work of terrible beauty.” She received the 2003 William Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album and an American Library Association Alex Award for her book One! Hundred! Demons! She lives and works in southern Wisconsin.
Alison Bechdel

Alison Bechdel’s comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For has become a countercultural institution since it began in 1983. The strip is syndicated in dozens of newspapers, translated into several languages and collected in a series of award-winning books. Utne magazine has listed DTWOF as “one of the greatest hits of the twentieth century.” And Comics Journal says, “Bechdel's art distills the pleasures of Friends and The Nation; we recognize our world in it, with its sorrows and ironies.”
Chris Ware

Chris Ware is the writer and cartoonist of the periodical The ACME Novelty Library. His other works include Jimmy Corrigan — the Smartest Kid on Earth, recipient of an American Book Award, the Guardian First Book Award, and L’Alph Art; The ACME Novelty Datebook Volumes 1 and 2; and Quimby the Mouse. His work has appeared in many national and international art exhibits, including the Whitney Biennial exhibit in 2002. He was recently awarded the Hoi Fellowship by the newly-formed United States Artists. A regular contributor to The New Yorker, Ware is currently at work on two longform graphic novels, Rusty Brown and Building Stories.


Daniel Raeburn is the author of the book Chris Ware. His essays have appeared in The Baffler, Tin House, and The New Yorker. His book about comic books, The Imp of the Perverse, is forthcoming. He teaches creative writing at the University of Chicago.

June 25: Author Appearance - Alison Bechdel, award-winning author of Fun Home

Dirk at Journalista noted that Alison Bechdel will be in town tomorrow at Lambda Rising on Dupont Circle (why do I have to read blogs based out of Seattle to find this out?). This was one of my favorite books of last year - I strongly recommend it. I already have a signed copy, but if anyone wants to go, let me know and I might drive back in.

Author Appearance - Alison Bechdel, award-winning author of Fun Home

Lambda Rising Time: Monday, June 25, 2007 7:00 PM
Location: Washington DC
Alison Bechdel, author of the popular comic series "Dykes to Watch Out For", will be returning to Lambda Rising to sign her graphic memoir Fun Home. Having won multiple awards, including the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir/Biography and Time Magazine's Book of the Year, this title has been newly released to paperback.

Come and meet Alison and get a copy of this masterpiece signed!

June 25: Alison Bechdel in Washington; we're not invited

Because it's an... American Library Association Event, for the GLBTRT Stonewall Book Awards Brunch, 10:30 am - 1:00 pm. Buy the book anyway when she's on her paperback tour - it was one of the best I read last year. This year I'm pushing Bertozzi's The Salon.

Alison Bechdel booksigning followup UPDATED

Politics and Prose put an interview with Bechdel on their website.

Also they sell recordings of the event and noted in their newsletter that Bechdel is available. I've ordered mine.

Bechdel wrote about the booksigning in her blog as did Jenny Miller on her blog.

Oct 2 Booksigning - Alison Bechdel REMINDER

Just a reminder - and note the time is an hour later than usual. I probably won't make it to this, but if anyone goes, feel free to comment here. Again, this is one of the best graphic novels of 2006.

Politics and Prose
Monday, October 2, 8 p.m.
ALISON BECHDEL
FUN HOME (Houghton Mifflin, $19.95)

In this illustrated memoir, Bechdel tells the story of her relationship with her father—an artistic, obsessive, and tragically repressed man. Bechdel has won acclaim for her hilarious, high-minded comic portraits of lesbian life, and this rich, beautiful work is a remarkable demonstration of her power as a storyteller.

Booksigning - Oct 2: Alison Bechdel's Fun Home

This is an excellent book. I highly recommend it. Mike

Politics and Prose
Monday, October 2, 8 p.m.
ALISON BECHDEL
FUN HOME (Houghton Mifflin, $19.95)

In this illustrated memoir, Bechdel tells the story of her relationship with her father—an artistic, obsessive, and tragically repressed man. Bechdel has won acclaim for her hilarious, high-minded comic portraits of lesbian life, and this rich, beautiful work is a remarkable demonstration of her power as a storyteller.