Dykes to Watch Out For was a comic strip by Alison Bechdel. The strip, which ran from 1983 to 2008, was one of the earliest ongoing representations of lesbians in popular culture and has been called "as important to new generations of lesbians as landmark novels like Rita Mae Brown's Rubyfruit Jungle and Lisa Alther's Kinflicks were to an earlier one".
Overview
DTWOF chronicled the lives, loves, and politics of a fairly diverse group of characters living in a medium-sized city in the United States, featuring both humorous soap opera storylines and biting topical commentary. The strip was carried in Funny Times and syndicated to a number of gay and lesbian newspapers, and also posted on the web. The first illustrated book edition was published by Firebrand Books in 1986. According to Bechdel, her strip was "half op-ed column and half endless, serialized Victorian novel". Characters reacted to contemporary events, including going to the Michigan Womyn's Festival, Gay Pride parades and protest marches, and having heated discussions about day-to-day events, political issues and the way lesbian culture was changing. The strip was one of the most successful and longest-running queer comic strips. It introduced the Bechdel test, a set of criteria for determining gender bias in works of entertainment, that has since found broad application. On May 10, 2008, Bechdel announced that she was putting the strip on indefinite hiatus in order to complete her graphic novel memoir Love Life, which was eventually published in 2012 as Are You My Mother?. On November 23, 2016, Bechdel broke the strip's hiatus with an episode called “Pièce de Résistance”. The same characters are shown addressing the eight-year gap and responding to the election of Donald Trump. “Pièce de Résistance” was published in Seven Days and on Bechdel's website. The amount of traffic caused the website to crash. Bechdel also drew the cover for the November 23–30, 2016 issue of Seven Days, featuring the Dykes to Watch Out For characters having Thanksgiving dinner. In the strip, the characters reflect on Donald Trump’s presidency and write postcards to the White House for the Ides of the Trump campaign. The Seven Days post states that Bechdel “now draws single strips when inspiration strikes.”
Main characters
The strip ran for 25 years; the characters aged in real time, and their city changed in ways realistic of many US cities. Many of the characters were connected to the city's feminist bookstore, which faced insuperable commercial pressures when Bounders Books and Muzak moved in. Eventually Madwimmin Books closed, and some of its laid-off employees went to work at Bounders. Other characters are connected via working or studying at the university, shared housing, or romantic relationships. The central characters included:
Mo Testa, the central character, a politically committed lesbian feminist with a tendency to. She worked at Madwimmin Bookstore, and then briefly at Bounders Books and Muzak while earning a library science degree, finally getting a job as a reference librarian.
Lois MacGiver, a sex-positive activist, drag king, also a book clerk at both stores. Lois is housemate to Ginger and Sparrow, and dates single mother Jasmine, mother oftransgender teenager Janis.
Ginger Jordan, a struggling academic and English professor at Buffalo LakeState University, whose star student Cynthia was interning at the CIA despite coming out to her parents. Longtime housemate of Lois and Sparrow, Ginger eventually bought a house with Samia, a Syrian Muslim chemist in a lavender marriage to a man.
Sparrow Pidgeon, former women's shelter director and New Ager-turned-atheist, who identified herself as a "bisexual lesbian" and became involved with a straight Jewish male activist, Stuart Goodman. Sparrow and Stuart have a child, Jiao Raizel, and Stuart becomes a stay-at-home dad; Lois and Stuart homeschooled Janis and J.R.
Clarice Clifford, a workaholic environmental lawyer and college girlfriend of Mo's.
Toni Ortiz, a CPA and business manager, who had a child with Clarice; she was a stay-at-home-mom for several years while raising their son Rafael Clifford-Ortiz. Toni and Clarice had a commitment ceremony in the backyard, a civil union in Vermont, and a marriage at City Hall. They later explored the phenomenon of divorcing without court involvement. Clarice then moved in with Sparrow, Stuart and Lois, taking the room vacated by Ginger.
Harriet, a state human rights investigator, Mo's ex-lover, and single mother to daughter Isabel.
Thea, a Jewish lesbian with multiple sclerosis who was Sydney's lover in college. Thea worked at Madwimmin Books, and afterwards taught art to kids.
Long-term housemates Sparrow and Ginger purchased the house they had shared with first with Lois and later with Stuart. When Ginger wanted to move on, the group was able to buy her share by Sparrow taking the Executive Director position at the state NARAL office. Only some of the characters' surnames were known, since such names appeared only when it was appropriate to the dialogue and were not established from the beginning.
Books
Strip collections
The strip had a number of , including:
Dykes to Watch Out For
More Dykes to Watch Out For
New, Improved! Dykes to Watch Out For
Dykes to Watch Out For: The Sequel
Spawn of Dykes to Watch Out For
Unnatural Dykes to Watch Out For
Hot, Throbbing Dykes to Watch Out For
Split-Level Dykes to Watch Out For
Post-Dykes to Watch Out For
Dykes and Sundry Other Carbon-Based Life-Forms to Watch Out For
Invasion of the Dykes to Watch Out For
The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For
The first of these collections contained miscellaneous, individual strips; the serialized story centered around Mo began halfway through the second collection, More Dykes to Watch Out For. Beginning with the third book Bechdel began including graphic "novellas" at the end of each book. Some were flashbacks, such as the tale of how everyone met in Unnatural Dykes to Watch Out For, or Serial Monogamy, Bechdel's humorous "documentary" on lesbian relationships, but most have advanced the plot in new and interesting ways, such as Raffi's birth at the end of Spawn of Dykes to Watch Out For. While not a compilation, The Indelible Alison Bechdel: Confessions, Comix, and Miscellaneous Dykes to Watch Out For included many of the strips Bechdel published in calendars, a timeline of the strip to date, and a fanciful "tour" of the "factory" where Dykes to Watch Out For is produced. The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, published in 2008, compiled most but not all of the strips that had ever been published under the title, along with a 12-page introduction in which Bechdel reflected on her time drawing the strip. The book won the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT fiction in 2009.
