A review by katieinca
The Essential Dykes to Watch Out for by Alison Bechdel

5.0

I picked this up because Fun Home and Are You My Mother were so powerful (and, you know, this is iconic). The weekly strip format makes for quicker bites, longer arcs, more gags, and less silence. Galloping through 21 years of a slice of life weekly comic in about a month feels like cheating. But it was great, seeing these characters start and end relationships, have babies that turn into middle schoolers, crying when their pets died... The soap opera parts kept me page-turning, but my favorite thing about this collection was the comics where she'd pick up a complex issue, both for humor and not, and just have all these characters talk about it in different ways that were very understandable *for those characters* - and for people we all know in real life. I wish I'd read it as it came out. For one thing, I would have been a little better educated about trans issues.
I was most surprised by the feelings of deja vu. Some things felt very '90s, but some of the political & news discussions felt so, so, today. The more things change, I guess.