Laugh Until You Stop

A few final purchases before the holiday season monopolizes my expenditures; one of the most essential being The Essential Dykes To Watch Out For, a compilation of some of the most memorable moments sequentially starting from 1983 on up to present by one of my favorite cartoonists Alison Bechdel. And indeed, since 1983 Dykes To Watch Out For is one of the longest running gay comic strips running today, featured in several gay newspapers and publications across the country, chronicling the sudsy lives of an insular lesbian community in a average-sized town in the United States. Friendships, love affairs, and politics are the order of the day, every day, in the

DTWOF universe, featuring free spirited Lois who brings home a new sexual playmate every night, African-American lawyer Clarice and Puerto Rican CPA Antonia living the lives of monogamous "marrieds" with a young son, feisty Jezanna who runs the Madwimmin book store where Lois works, along with Mo. Mo, somewhat a central character who in her glasses, k.d. lang hairstyle and neverending array of striped shirts sort of resembles the author and illustrator herself, is the neurotic, high-strung comic relief with her polemical diatribes, the kind of person who stays up all night in a sleepless fit over the

plight of the world and often bends the ear of any available customer with her rants about President Clinton's waffling on gay rights issues, the evils of eating meat and refined sugar, starving children in some far-off land, Republicans in general, and cancer -- all more than likely in one breath, until the customer decides to take her business down to the giant corporate chain store downtown just to get away from her. But Mo has a kind and generous side to her as well, and her friends may roll their eyes during one of her notorious tirades -- but they love her. And that's what makes DTWOF such a fascinating read. With all the talk of politics, activism, love, sex, therapy, and

identity, Alison Bechdel creates a community that reminds those of us that have it easier in this life for being born among the status quo how important having a community can be, for support and friendship, and most of all a family. A family of society's fringe that make a world for themselves with supporting lesbian-run book stores, restaurants, doctor's, lawyers -- yet at the same time struggling for more space for themselves to fit in with the rest of the world. And the book is rich with satire for its own subject matter. Jokes about bringing a U-Haul on a first date as well as all of their therapy sessions into their daily lives, trying to maintain a politically correct lifestyle even when confronted with their inherent contradictions, Bechdel doesn't let the ladies get off that easily. But it's easy to grow to love this dysfunctional extended family, as I have these last two weeks of reading. Plus, it's also fun watching Bechdel's art change and refine itself over time, like a lot of artists do. Marvelous.