The Essential Dykes to Watch Out for

I first saw a DTWOF comic in one of the campus newspapers of my hometown growing up. In the years of DTWOF comic strips that followed, I'd occasionally catch one posted online, or in another newspaper, or a few strips in a collection at someone's house. But the comics are intensely serialized (not making much sense as a standalone), the whole archive was never available online and only 527 comics were ever published in the 21 years of the strip, so it always seemed like I was catching a glimpse of an elusive whole. This collection is near-complete and the storyline finally manages to be cohesive. Don't get me wrong: this still reads like a serial, and threads drop and there are one-off jokes, but it reads a lot better as a collection.

Perhaps what I found the most interesting from a modern perspective was actually the politics. It was fascinating to realize that the things that the characters said about Bush (HW) and Clinton (Bill) strongly resemble the things that I've said about Bush (W) and Clinton (Hillary) and Trump and Obama, too, for that matter. And indeed, the protest wing of leftwing politics versus the run-for-office-wing versus the tear-your-hair-out-publicly wing have apparently always had the tension that is so apparent now.

As I said to my girlfriend, “I was expecting to read some fun lesbian comics but here I am getting life lessons and models of being and confirmation that the world has always been this ridiculous and people live in it anyway. Like it's both strange and comforting to see them all stressing over Bush and related political events because at least other people have felt the apocalypse is nigh for many decades.” Basically this book is what The L Word should have been, particularly as it incorporates politics directly and materially into the lives of the characters. I particularly enjoyed the long running motif of contrasting Mo's hysteria about global catastrophes and oppression with the material life of grassroots organizers and working class folks around her – essentially, we can theorize and catastrophize all we want, but doing so won't change things, because only working in community with others for material good changes things. The cast is broad, diverse, fully realized with plenty of depth (even in characters who are less frequent or introduced later)... and full of queers, and mostly queer women, all of which I love.

I do feel that the comics were better in the beginning. Toward the end, many of the characters got complacent and it sometimes felt like Bechtel did too. I felt this particularly with the introduction of of Cynthia, the Republican college student taught by Ginger. The characters, who cut their teeth as radical feminists, battle wits with her but rarely challenge her materially; it is surprising to me to see Cynthia and Ginger interact without any real interrogation of the racism of Republican policies (the xenophobia and classism, yes, does get engaged; but still). My other complaints are that some of the characters' transphobia, while checked and picked apart by others (usually Lois), does not often have material critiques or consequences; and that Sydney is a terrible person and Mo is kind of also a terrible person for being with her. (Which... is maybe the point. But seriously how are you supposed to root for Sydney who does terrible shit routinely and never actually apologizes or changes??)

Despite these gripes, I have a feeling I will return to this book whenever I want to be around queer women who are unapologetically political and who muddle on even when the world around them seems bleak.

While I'm making comics confessions: I'd never read any DtWOF comics before. I loved [b:Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic 26135825 Fun Home A Family Tragicomic Alison Bechdel https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1448570249s/26135825.jpg 911368] and [b:Are You My Mother? 11566956 Are You My Mother? Alison Bechdel https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388205192s/11566956.jpg 16507555], and I knew this was a thing, but just...never read it. I was amazed by how fresh and timely a LOT of this still feels, even while still being a really specific time capsule for different eras of the last like 25 years?!Of course there have been some cultural shifts and it's interesting to see how some of the language and norms have shifted over the years, particularly with regard to trans* people. But it's great to see how Bechdel's work evolved with the times. It's amazing how this twice-monthly one-page comic strip had so many well-developed, diverse characters who had truly evolving lives and story arcs! There are a lot of balls in the air throughout the course of the story and there's almost always a payoff. This is the “essential” not the “complete”, and IDK how many individual comics are missing from this? I know they're online but it was nice to just dive into this and read a whole bunch. Also I liked her comic introduction to the collection.ALSO WARNINGS FOR PET DEATHS. TWO OF THEM. wahhh

Really, really enjoyed this. Read probably too much in one sitting several times, which I guess is common with compilations. Bechdel‰ЫЄs memoirs were amazing and this comic isn‰ЫЄt that different, just less sustained. I never got to read this strip while I was growing up but if I had I would probably be a different person. There are so many things in here that would have been valuable to me as a teenager.