The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For

In recent years, Alison Bechdel has become perhaps most widely known for authoring the graphic memoir Fun Home, which was adapted into a Tony Award-winning Broadway musical in 2015. Before the success of Fun Home, though, Bechdel established her career with Dykes to Watch Out For, a comic strip following the trials and tribulations of a community of lesbian women. The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For collects strips from 1987 to 2008 into a single volume, allowing readers to follow along with Bechdel’s cast of characters as they deal with their love lives, career choices, and politics over the years.

Bechdel’s comic is funny and incisive but also warm, her characters sometimes humorously over the top but always deeply relatable. Although we are now decades removed from some of the specific political events Bechdel’s characters were grappling with, the political concerns that The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For explores remain relevant today. Every part of the collection feels true to life and resonant, capturing life as it was at the time of the comics’ publication while also taking on new meaning in the present context. Witty and well-drawn, The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For is essential reading.