Alison Bechdel (born September 10, 1960) is a US comics artist, best known for the lesbian comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For.

Alison Bechdel was born in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania to a Catholic family of teachers. In 1981 she graduated from Oberlin College (having transferred to Oberlin from Simon's Rock College) and moved to New York City. She applied to many art schools but was rejected and worked in a number of office jobs in the publishing industry.

According to Indelible Alison Bechdel, she began Dykes to Watch Out For as a single drawing labeled "Marianne, dissatisfied with the morning brew. Dykes to Watch Out For, plate no. 27". An acquaintance recommended that she send her work to Womannews newspaper, which began to publish the strip regularly in July-August issue of 1983. After a year is spread to number of other papers. In the first years the strip consisted of unconnected strips that were collected into her first paperback book, Dykes to Watch Out For, published by Firebrand Books in the fall of 1986.

In 1987, when Bechdel was living in St. Paul, Bechdel introduced the regular characters, Mo and her friends (see Dykes to Watch Out For for these). In 1990 she became a full-time cartoonist.

She later moved near Burlington, Vermont, where she currently (as of September 2004) resides with her wife, Amy Rubin .

In addition to the strip, Bechdel has also made autobiographical strips and drawn illustrations for a number of magazines and websites.

See also

Lambda Literary Award

Books

• The Indelible Alison Bechdel: Confessions, Comix, and Miscellaneous Dykes to Watch Out For (1998)

External link

• Alison Bechdel and DTOWF homepage