The Indelible Alison Bechdel: Confessions, Comix, and Miscellaneous Dykes to Watch Out for [Hardcover]

Alison Bechdel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1998

Go behind the pen and into the psyche of "dyke to watch out for" Alison Bechdel, cartoon chronicler extraordinaire, as the inner workings of lesbiana's most quick-witted, longest-running social commentator are revealed. Illustrations throughout .

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Firebrand Books (March 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1563410974
• ISBN-13: 978-1563410970
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 8.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,790,701 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

ALISON BECHDEL has been a careful archivist of her own life and kept a journal since she was ten. Since 1983 she has been chronicling the lives of various characters in the fictionalized "Dykes to Watch Out For" strip, "one of the preeminent oeuvres in the comics genre, period" (Ms.). The strip is syndicated in 50 alternative newspapers, translated into multiple languages, and collected into a book series with a quarter of a million copies in print. Utne magazine has listed DTWOF as "one of the greatest hits of the twentieth century."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ever wished you could meet the author of DTWOF?, May 4, 1998

By 

R. Byrd "byrdie" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Indelible Alison Bechdel : Confessions, Comix, and Miscellaneous Dykes to Watch Out for (Paperback)

This book is the next best thing.

It includes her earliest drawings (as in, from age 3), comments on what was happening in her life at the time that certain strips were drawn, what her mother thinks of certain storylines and who she was actually writing about in some of the more intimate one-shots.

Since Bechdel has stopped publishing calendars, there's a section that includes each one from 1990 to 1997. Also, there are stills from the "factory tour" screen saver, the results of an artist jam, a story timeline, and strips that were published elsewhere (for certain causes, specials for various magazines, and so on).

If you've got all of the other previous DTWOF books, this won't make your collection complete (there's a strip for teenagers about how to deal with a friend coming out that I just couldn't find in this book), but it will certainly help you get there. Warning: there is some overlap if you have all the books.

This was a neat surprise to find at Amazon.com -- I had no idea that Bechdel was working on this compliation. Definately add it to your collection!

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You Must Have It, October 9, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Indelible Alison Bechdel: Confessions, Comix, and Miscellaneous Dykes to Watch Out for (Hardcover)

Bechdel's prose here is as smart and funny as readers of the regular strip would expect. It starts as a memoir as she describes her beginnings and progression as a cartoonist, and includes lots of early drawings and strips. The bulk of the book is made up of stuff never seen in the DTWOF volumes: strips from her calendars, strips made for other magazines or special occasions, and autobiographical work. It's great stuff, always funny, and everyone with a sense of humor should buy it right away.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A little bit of everything, January 11, 2007

By 

Akira Oshima "Mark Oshima" (Tokyo, japan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Indelible Alison Bechdel : Confessions, Comix, and Miscellaneous Dykes to Watch Out for (Paperback)

This is a wonderful book for fans of DTWOF with little cartoons from calanders and what not. However, it is not a part of the series, so people looking for additions to the narrative of the books will be disappointed or a bit frustrated. But aside from that, this is a book full of goodies, perfect to savor a little bit at a time.