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15th Anniversary Edition of Stuck Rubber Baby

June 15th, 2010 | Other Projects

Check it. Howard Cruse’s groundbreaking graphic novel Stuck Rubber Baby has just been reprinted by Vertigo. You can read more about it at Howard’s blog. I got to write the introduction, which was a great honor. Howard has been a big influence on me in my cartooning career—if it weren’t for him, I might have gone to law school or something. If you’re in the NYC area, you can see Howard in person along with dyke cartoonist legend Jennifer Camper, and the amazing Ivan Velez Jr, creator of Tales of the Closet, at the below events.

Serious Funnies
Howard Cruse, Jennifer Camper, Ivan Velez, Jr.
Slide show, spirited discussion and book signing
Wednesday, June 16 — 8pm
BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance
841 Barreto Street, 2nd Floor
Bronx, NY (718) 842-5223
for directions: http://www.BronxAcademyOfArtsAndDance.org

Jim Hanley’s Universe
Howard Cruse, Jennifer Camper, Ivan Velez, Jr.
Panel moderated by Joan Hilty and book signing
Thursday, June 17 — 6 – 8pm
4 West 33rd St. (opposite The Empire State Bldg.)
(212) 268-7088 http://jhuniverse.blogspot.com/

Queer Comix
Howard Cruse, Jennifer Camper, Ivan Velez, Jr.
Slide show, spirited discussion and book signing
Friday, June 18 — 7:30 – 9pm
Bluestockings Bookstore
172 Allen St (between Stanton and Rivington)
(212) 777-6028 http://bluestockings.com/

cover girl, in theory

June 6th, 2010 | Other Projects

My friend the Queer Theory Professor just wrote an article on my graphic memoir Fun Home for GLQ: A Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies. It made the cover, with this image of me searching the HQ shelves in a library.

It’s an odd sensation, reading an academic examination of my work. It’s sort of like being psychoanalyzed in public, but not exactly, since it’s the book and not myself on the couch. And because I don’t really have any training in critical theory, I only have a partial grasp of what people are talking about. The QTP’s article is called “In the Queer Archive.” I can’t really summarize it accurately, but it’s about the way I try to provide documentary evidence in my memoir—maps, photos, newspaper reports, etc.—and how that relates to something that Jacques Derrida calls “archive fever.” Here’s a nice disorienting quote.

We know, of course, that the historical person Alison Bechdel is distinct from the “I” of the narrator’s voice, and that this narrating consciousness, whose words fill the top of many graphic panels, is also none of the past selves, the Alisons aged two to twenty whom we see on the page. In part this proliferation of subjects is endemic to the autobiography, which must re-create past selves through retrospective projection and, in so doing, must cause them to anticipate the author who is to come.

Hmm. I’m not sure which Alison is making this blog post. The one who logged in to Wordpress and hit “new post,” or the one who is just about to hit the “publish” button.

Librarians do gaga

May 31st, 2010 | Other Projects

Thanks to my pal Ruth Horowitz for alerting me to this very wonderful video by the University of Washington’s Information School (and for giving me the opportunity to redirect our attention from my recent ill-advised haircut).

haircuts 4 less

May 30th, 2010 | Other Projects

Did you ever feel like you couldn’t stand your hair for one more second, that you just had to buzz it all off? This afternoon I asked my neighbor if I could borrow her clippers. She said sure, but why don’t you sleep on it. Please sleep on it. I said well, maybe, but give me the clippers. Then Holly came home and suggested that I sleep on it. I said, no, I really want to do this. Then she grabbed the clippers and ran around the house with them and hid them somewhere. I promised her that I was just going to use the #4 blade, which wouldn’t cut very much off. She said okay, and showed me where the clippers were.

hey!

May 26th, 2010 | Other Projects

Lookit this cool video about what seems to now be called the “Bechdel Movie test.” I just have to apologize to my old karate buddy Lizzie Wallace, who I TOTALLY stole this idea from. I tried a while ago to re-name it “The Ripley Test” after Sigourney Weaver’s character in Alien. But it didn’t get any traction.

Thanks to my pals Ruth Horowitz and Jake Weisman for alerting me to this.

a visit from a cartoonist

May 22nd, 2010 | Other Projects

My pal Hilary Price, the Rhymes With Orange cartoonist, just came for a visit. Here’s a screenshot of her drawing a monster. I love the final touch—the eyebrow.

hummingbird dips its nib

May 19th, 2010 | Other Projects

…in the inkwell of life.

I just hung this hummingbird feeder outside the window by my computer. This little bird is almost constantly sipping from it. How am I supposed to get anything done?

it strikes like lightnings

May 12th, 2010 | Other Projects

This morning I was awakened at dawn by hermit thrushes, back from wherever they’ve been since last summer. Their song is unbearably beautiful. But instead of subjecting you to one of my feeble annual tributes, (2006, 2008) I’ll direct you to the lovely animated version of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem “Spring” that my friend Sarah Van Arsdale just made.