In a couple of days, Houghton Mifflin will release its first work of graphic literature, Alison Bechdel’s memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. Bechdel is the creator of Dykes to Watch Out For, a comic strip that she started in 1983. Rachel Deahl writes for PW:
The title—which ironically plays on the name that Bechdel and her brothers had for their massive Victorian house that doubled as the local funeral parlor (her father, a high school English teacher, did side work as the town’s resident mortician)—hints at Bechdel’s dark sense of humor. Revealing its author’s mix of pop and high literary sensibilities—the references run from Ulysses to Delta of Venus to Mad magazine—Fun Home, Bechdel’s first significant book of original material, displays a wonderful juxtaposition of subject and tone.
Here’s Bechdel’s blog.