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Alison Bechdel discusses cartooning and community

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Alan Gardner October 7, 2010 1 minute 1 comment

Alison Bechdel, creator of Dykes to Watch Out For and the graphic novel “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic” recently spoke to the 11th annual Stonewall Lecture recently spoke to the 11th annual Stonewall Lecture at Dartmouth College. The topic was creativity and community and she addressed how her work was about a community but part of it as well.

She also mentioned a distinction she’s had to make regarding her identity.

While presenting her comic strips, however, Bechdel discussed her struggle to unite her own gay identity and her work.

?As inspiring as community was for my creativity, it was also constraining,? she said. ?I find that I am one of those people who says, ?I am a lesbian and a cartoonist, but not a lesbian cartoonist.??

I believe this is also the point several African American cartoonists were trying to make a couple of years ago trying to fight their work being labeled “African American” regardless of the genre or audience their comic targets simply because the creator was African American.