For those who don't know, Alison Bechdel is the author of Dykes to Watch Out For - which I will eventually get around to featuring on here, no doubt. I think she was probably the author of the first ever gay themed comic I ever read because at that time I think she was published in The Pink Paper over here in the UK.
Fans of her work will know how much Alison's style has progressed over the years and so they'll be quite used to her drawings. And stylistically, this is very much in keeping with her recent strips with the exception of the added colour, which is a green, water colour hue on the art.
Fun Home is a book in graphic novel format, really. It's Alison's autobiography in a comic strip, basically. It revolves around her relationship with her closeted gay father and 'Fun Home' is what they used to call the funeral parlour that the family operated.
Sometimes touching, sometimes amusing, sometimes quite thought provoking but it did quote a lot of things that I had no knowledge of at all, which made me feel incredibly unintelligent and uncultured and while sometimes cultural and literary references can prompt a reader to run off and look things up so learn more about it, this was just so full of back references that I just didn't bother. I fear only English teachers will really get the full benefit of a lot of what she covers. Or maybe I just read all the wrong books during my life, who knows but the non-literary inclined amongst you will probably finish it feeling as ignorant as I did.
Naturally it does cover Alison's own sexual discovery and it's got a few sex scenes and moments of (both male and female) nudity.
Easy to get into bar the literary references but it does have quite a melancholy feel to it, since it deals with her father's death and even the moments of humour in it are still permeated by that.
I did feel bad reading it in a day though, when you knew it took her years to complete.
Alison Bechdel's official website can be found here: www.dykestowatchoutfor.com
- Purchase Fun Home by Alison Bechdel from UK Amazon
- Purchase Fun Home by Alison Bechdel from US Amazon
1 comment:
One thing I love so thoroughly loved about Fun House was that middle America probably flocked to read it since it was on all these 'best of' lists and there she was, our esteemed author, eating her girlfriend's pussy.
Graphic novels tend to be easy to read. The thing about them is you also tend to go back and read snippets or look at the art. That doesn't happen with most books.
~eb
emeraldpillows.org
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