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Slammy posted:MISS YUMMY DUMMY of 1947!” Bitter tears streaming down my face as I try and try in vain to change the thread title one last time.
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Oct 20, 2020 03:03
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Crabgrass is such a gem. Super funny, beautiful to look at, and the emotional moments hit in a really true and honest way. I felt this one in my gut. As for OBH I mean, you can take a nose ring out. You can take a nose ring out very very easily.
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Oct 20, 2020 15:12
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Dykes to Watch Out For #110 (1991) Mo is a complete poo poo in this one and I love it. I also admire how fast Bechdel is moving with the subplot about Ginger's love life. It never becomes that central a focus but it does develop for quite a while. Toni and Clarice's baby will of course also become very very important, even moreso as the strip develops and moves on from the quasi-bohemian early-30s lives of the characters right now. Sam's Strip (3/3/1962) 
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Oct 20, 2020 16:45
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Dykes to Watch Out For #111 (1991) Black/Out was a quarterly magazine published by the National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays, an activist organization founded in 1978 as a gay men's group but opened up to lesbians in 1984. The NCBLG was notable for its wide roster of practical and material concerns, including queer rights internationally and the issues surrounding queer parenting rights. By 1990 the NCBLG was pretty much done, most of its leadership having drifted away to other groups or out of activism. I'm not actually sure how long Black/Out continued, so Ginger's t-shirt here is a little mysterious! You can have a look at the first issue of Black/Out here for a taste of how wide-ranging its concerns were. Sam's Strip (3/5/1962)  You know who the Harlem Globetrotters are and me telling you isn't going to make either of our lives any better. I just looked it up and they were formed in 1926-- way older than I would have guessed. The joke here may just be that they're wondrous trickster who are good at basketball, but it might nod to their meeting with Nikita Khrushchev in 1959 and being collectively awarded the Athletic Order of Lenin medal. But probably not. In 1976 Henry Kissinger would, ominously, be named an honorary Harlem Globetrotter so you know, maybe they could use a little more timidity after all. How Wonderful! fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Oct 21, 2020 |
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Oct 21, 2020 20:40
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EasyEW posted:
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Oct 21, 2020 22:25
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I reread the early 90s Batman crossover Knightfall this week and I knew the art was familiar! Mike Manley, the Phantom (and Judge Parker) guy did some of the most striking looking issues of it! I think that rules.
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Oct 23, 2020 20:26
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SubNat posted:Moomin bread. Moomin Bread. Oh yeah, I never posted it in here but look what my wife got me for my birthday a few weeks. These were a few cute thing in addition to some other stuff.  
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Oct 26, 2020 20:05
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Mr. Monster is a comic book hero created by Michael T. Gilbert in 1984 and published by a string of independent presses, based on a 1940s character of the same name but revised to be more of a goofy, over-the-top kind of pulp pastiche (some of the time... there's a much more serious melodrama arc when the series pops over to Dark Horse in the late 80s). When Eclipse was republishing old EC 1950s horror comics, Mr. Monster also had little framing stories where he introduced them Cryptkeeper style. Why is he in Funky Winkerbean? I don't know. I think Mr. Monster has had some team-ups before, but this may be the first time he's teamed up with a comic that absolutely sucks poo poo.
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Oct 30, 2020 07:32
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Hey, for many obvious national reasons and other personal reasons I've been very busy and stressed out lately, and apologize for falling off of posting DtWoF for so long. It has been a difficult period for all trans people, I think, and I've also had a lot of bureaucratic issues over the past two week that have chewed up a lot of my spare time. Anyway here's Mo again with one that feels, to me at least, timely and apropos. Dykes to Watch Out For #112 (1991)   I do love the character of Mo a lot, and I think she's a really good, complicated portrait of how being depressed, anxious, and facing really undeniably crushing pressures can still cause you to act like kind of an rear end in a top hat. Sam's Strip (3/6/1962) 
How Wonderful! fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Nov 1, 2020 |
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Nov 1, 2020 18:17
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Oh I don't know, I appreciate that Holbrook's thoughts in that strip seem to be "things might be very hosed, many of my readers might be terrified or unsafe on November 4th, but I have no way of knowing and feel weird writing and drawing strips for a future I feel uncertain about." It's a sentiment that I have spoken to many other educators about after the experience of teaching in Fall 2016, and one that I am not alone in having tried to work into what has already been a very strange and disconnected semester. It's not great great great comics but I understand and empathize with where he's coming from. I think it's perfectly human to acknowledge the conditions of precarity within which one is producing art, and somewhat moving even in the context of this dumbshit comic about murder rabbits or whatever.
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Nov 2, 2020 00:26
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PetraCore posted:This is where I'm at. Don't get me wrong, Holbrook's work is absolutely loving bonkers, but I don't have the impression of him being a cruel person and I think he was genuinely concerned about how people will be feeling when he was writing that comic. My Shameful Secret is that I actually kind of like Kevin & Kell, it's nicely drawn and is just sheer madness in a totally unique way. Even if accidentally, I think it has a lot in comic with two much more polished and sophisticated strips that are personal favorites of mine, unsurprisingly: Dykes to Watch Out For and Moomin. All three strips are about characters inhabiting a world which is arbitrarily and capriciously cruel, governed by rules seemingly dictated by nonsense and whim. All three comics are about characters who are shown as fundamentally decent people occupying a small footprint of the setting, who love and care for each other under incomprehensible circumstances. And crucially, all three show that these characters are not totally at odds with their often hostile settings but are products of their respective worlds, who are informed equally by empathy and solidarity as by their sense of being of their settings. Obviously Moomin is at heart a strip for kids, and its terrors and ambiguities-- the Groke primarily-- are reflective of a child's incomprehension of a big and scary world. DtWoF is about activists and lovers ostracized by narrow-mindedness and greed. And Kevin & Kell is just kind of dumb and none of the metaphors make sense and everything is completely insane and weird. But I think it has heart and I think I innately am drawn to stories about people trying to be good in a bad world. On the Fast Track is really bad and I don't even bother reading Safe Havens but I think Kevin & Kell's absolute weirdness is one of a kind and in its own way pretty compelling. This has been especially true since Mikl started posting the early strips because I think they're legitimately beautifully drawn! When so many daily strips are obviously phoned in or sloppy I love seeing such delicate and often clever linework.
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Nov 2, 2020 02:29
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Dykes to Watch Out For #113 (1991) Sadly for many of Sparrow's news headlines there are several possibilities to choose from. The "national victory celebration" for returning Gulf War soldiers (and Gulf War weapons hardware) was on June 8th, 1991 and cost $12 million dollars so I guess this places this strip in the spring. Trying to pin down the rest of the stuff depressed me too much so I gave up. Feel free to do it yourself but leave me out of it buddy. Not today. Sam's Strip (3/7/1962)  A motley crew in the tub. You've got Donald Duck, Popeye, Beetle Bailey (created by Sam's Strip letterer and co-writer Mort Walker), Snuffy Smith, and, once again, Jiggs from Bringing Up Father.
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Nov 2, 2020 21:21
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Kavak posted:What city is DTWOF set in if any? Good question. I don't think it's any particular city, but somewhere on the East Coast I think where people can comfortably drive back and forth to like, upstate New York and I believe when they go to the beach it's at a lake since you can see a city on the other shore. For some reason for years I assumed it took place in Burlington, VT, but that was misinformation and possibly just getting confused by Bechdel living in good old Chittenden County. My wife who grew up reading it in Seven Days has just hazarded "somewhere kind of based on Syracuse or Albany or Ithaca," while another review I saw just now floated Minneapolis. Part of her reasoning is that Route 92, which we can see in one of the maps in the little TPBs, runs straight through Syracus. FWIW later the school Ginger teaches at is referred to as "Buffalo Lake," which I don't know, but Buffalo State is a SUNY campus. So who knows! There's a map of the town in the Essential which I'll go grab in a second, because it's pretty interesting one way or the other. Edit: Here we go. I'll throw this under spoiler tags since it has some pretty minor spoilers about comics from 25 years ago, but I think the story does have some fun twists and surprises. 
How Wonderful! fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Nov 3, 2020 |
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Nov 3, 2020 01:42
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Eventually they start buying houses in a supremely un-NYC way.
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Nov 3, 2020 01:58
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Ponsonby Britt posted:I feel like if the strip were set in New York City, Mo would be constantly complaining about specific events in municipal politics that nobody outside of New York would understand or care about. Also, given the time period, probably a lot of Trump references? That reminds me, this feels as timely now as it ever will be unless I really get around to posting 30 years worth of comics. In 2016 Bechdel broke her almost eight year long retirement from DtWOF to publish a short post-election strip in Seven Days, the Burlington alt weekly. Here it is! Spoilered again in case you want to be surprised at where various characters wind up. 
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Nov 3, 2020 02:37
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Shiroc posted:I know that it was specifically for a depressing moment but does the main story end at a point that feels so shabby and run down? I was thinking of getting the Essential book at Christmas and wonder if it would feel too sad for the state of things. Mmm not really. Everybody is stressed and wrapped up in projects, like they have been all along, but many of them are also in happy relationships and looking back on progress on future goals. The last panel is kind of sweet. Everybody's kvetching but they're together and the future looks at least provisionally ok. I won't post it because it's mostly characters who have not shown up yet at this point but I think it's a pretty nice ending, even if I do get the sense that Bechdel just got tired of this project (and after 30 years who can blame her, especially as she was beginning to focus more on full-length memoir) and not a fully thought-out farewell. Edit: Oh, you know what, about a month after the last published strip she also did a final little one-panel gag comic as a holiday thing on her blog. It's also cute and has real warmth for the characters. I should note that as the strip went on people started aging more or less in real time (this really ramps up when people start having kids) if you're wondering about Mo's wrinkles.  How Wonderful! fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Nov 3, 2020 |
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Nov 3, 2020 03:49
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StrixNebulosa posted:I'm late because I've been busy but this is a good post. I really enjoy Kevin and Kell, almost as much as I enjoy hating on it. I don't have anything to add except that you're a good poster and post good comics, thank you. Aw thanks! You too! Anyway, a little stroke of fortune. On this stressful day we're up to one of my all-time favorite DtWOF strips. Dykes to Watch Out For #114 (1991)  Most of this is self-explanatory. Somewhat surprisingly, Bechdel stuck with actual movies for the marquee here, perhaps to drive home her point about dude-centric blockbusters. Kindergarten Cop was a 1990 Schwarzenegger movie about uh, a cop who has to teach kindergarten to catch a drug-lord. It's goofy. What About Bob? is a 1991 Frank Oz movie starring Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss. Dreyfuss is a psychiatrist, Murray is Bob, an annoying patient. Thelma and Louise was a 1991 Ridley Scott movie in which Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon go wild on a road trip together, a very formative movie for the 90s "girl power" aesthetic. In it, a guy who's harassing and assaulting them gets shot to death in what was then an extremely cathartic scene for many women. Pursued by the cops for this, they go on a spree before eventually deciding to drive off the edge of a cliff together, which is where the movie ends. So-- on the one hand, two cool ladies not giving a poo poo, telling annoying men to eat poo poo and blowing up their trucks. On the other hand, they end up dead, suicide being preferable to capture and reassimilation back into the patriarchy. Andrew Dice Clay was a comedian who was popular for being kind of a loud-mouthed idiot. He said all kinds of dumbshit racist and misogynist things as part of his "anti-PC" persona so his appearance here is appropriate. I just really like the way the catcalling guy gets shut down here. Like I said, one of my favorite strips. Sam's Strip (3/8/1962)  Jackie Kennedy was famous for her couture and especially her Oleg Cassini and Chanel suits. Her little pillbox hat and pink Chanel suit were a signature look, that, kind of grimly for this strip, because most famous from the day of JFK's assassination in 1963.
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Nov 3, 2020 17:29
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The Great Rope-Swing Fetish of 1908 got a lot of people hot under the collar.
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Nov 3, 2020 23:46
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 You tell 'em sister!
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Nov 5, 2020 20:24
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Dykes to Watch Out For #115 (1991) Toni is probably referring to the nomination of Clarence Thomas, a conservative George H.W. Bush appointee put forward to replace Civil Rights titan Thurgood Marshall. Thomas was the second of two Bush appointments, the first being David Souder in 1990, although Thomas was strongly considered for that slot as well. To begin with Thomas presented clear issues to many-- he was a conservative's conservative and relatively inexperienced. All of these issues were compounded in the light of compelling allegations of sexual harassment by his former colleague Anita Hill. Anyway I regret to inform Toni-- he's of course still around and still awful.
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Nov 6, 2020 23:30
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coronatae posted:That offhand comment about Schwarzenegger is amazing in hindsight He'd been a prominent Republican figure following the 1988 presidential election, when he appeared at a Bush campaign rally, so I think for that kind of "post-Reagan, the floodgates are open for any recognizable but unqualified celebrity" anxiety he worked really well.
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Nov 6, 2020 23:42
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Dykes to Watch Out For (1991) This is the beginning of a plot which will lead to the introduction of a recurring character who herself will lead to the introduction of one of the last remaining main characters to not show up yet. It's also one of the most blatant "Mo is being the rear end in a top hat" plots in the entire run of the comic which is kind of a feat! We'll see more soon. In fact if you look very carefully at this strip you can get a sneak preview. I've already talked about Two Nice Girls -- "Let's gently caress" doesn't seem to be an actual single by them and in fact googling "Two Nice Girls" "Let's gently caress" has just left me feeling vaguely incriminated. "Don't Doubt It" was a 1985 album from lesbian singer-songwriter Deirdre McCalla, an Olivia Records mainstay. "Imagine My Surprise" was a 1978 album by Holly Near and Meg Christian, kind of a folky protest album with outspoken lesbian themes. Meg Christian was another lesbian folk music, and "I Know You Know" was her 1974 debut with Olivia Records, a label she was also a founding member of. I have no idea what's up with the album that's just a little person in a hat and sunglasses. Is it a famous cover I don't recognize or just something goofy? "Neurotic in Nature" might be a reference to the hip hop trio Naughty by Nature, which was mentored by Queen Latifah following their 1989 debut. Latifah as has already been discussed was kind of a covert gay icon. She had a verse on their self-titled second album (1991), "Wickedest Man Alive." Still feels like kind of a weird pick for the kind of store Madwimmin has been shown to be but good for them I bet, it's a good album that has held up for the most part. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-Vh1ACj0VQ The Venus of Willendorf is a sculpture estimated to be from 30,000 BCE and was discovered in 1908. It depicts a very voluptuous yonic figure, and is speculated to have been a number of things ranging from a fertility fetish to a very early attempt at self-portrait (explaining the exaggerated features and blank face). In the late 20th century it became a popular figure of timeless feminine creativity and power and you can still find all sorts of knick-knacks and poo poo featuring it. I always felt this was kind of ahistorical. Which is why I'm drinking tea out of a Little My mug and not a Venus of Willendorf mug I guess. Bechdel has a little fun with the ubiquity of these things as well-- aside from the boxers and coffee mugs, which are pointed out in the dialogue, you can also see Venus of Willendorf salt and pepper shakers in the last panel. Spoiler for 32,000 year old boobs: 
How Wonderful! fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Nov 9, 2020 |
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Nov 9, 2020 16:38
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I'm super stressed and busy with dissertation stuff so here's a sneaky middle-of-the-knight DtWOF. It's a really, really funny one, too. Dykes to Watch Out For #117 (1991)  I hope I will have time to post another tomorrow and then on Tuesday things should slow down a little. Sorry for the skimpy post.
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Nov 16, 2020 05:26
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Dykes to Watch Out For #118 (1991) Not a flattering moment for Mo and one of the central moments I think of when people paint the strip as transphobic on account of Mo's poor judgment and ignorance later on. We'll see this plot develop over the next little while, and it segues into a very big turn for the series as a whole a little further down the line. In 1991 a neuroscientist, Simon LaVey, published a paper suggesting that a cluster of brain cells-- or rather, the relative size of that cluster-- might influence or even determine sexual orientation (being about twice as large in straight men as in gay men or in women of any orientation), spurring a flurry of heated op-eds and gave a welcome black-eye to those who argued that homosexuality was a "choice." This research was often glibly reduced in the press to being about "the Gay Brain," hence I presume the newspaper headline in this strip focusing on the real outlier and turning the rhetorical gaze around. LaVey's paper broke into public attention in late August of 1991 so we can potentially pin this strip down to late Summer or so.
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Nov 18, 2020 06:39
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amigolupus posted:Batiuk has some weird loving ideas about what constitutes romance. If my wife gave me a little memento of where we had our first date for our anniversary I'd actually find it extraordinarily touching and romantic. Also if you have been married or even just in a relationship long enough I think it's almost universal that anniversaries become less about big showy gestures and more about a little cute or sentimental token of affection and appreciation. Of all the things to get mad at Tom Batiuk about this is strange to me, I think the salad dressing and even the little "salad years" joke are both good.
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Nov 20, 2020 03:40
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Stand back! Mo's in a mood! Dykes to Watch Out For #119 (1991)  This one hits home for me because I'm a lesbian with serious plans to raise a baby in the near future. My wife and I (well, my wife especially) are also both in more respectable careers than we probably thought we'd be in in our twenties. Anyway I'm always happy with the strips where Mo is just sitting in somebody else's house being a pill. How Wonderful! fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Nov 21, 2020 |
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Nov 21, 2020 04:04
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Dykes to Watch Out For #120 (1991)  As amigolupus mentioned the other day, one of my favorite things about DtWoF is that Mo is difficult in a very believable way. Her friends love her but they aren't rhetorical doormats, her curmudgeonly ways have consequences and people push back on her in interesting and dynamic ways. Here we see her lovely mood about Thea crashing head-on into the simmering subplot about her relationship Harriet. "You used to think I was adorable when I panicked" is kind of a big red flag but an almost heartbreakingly human and relatable one. I think it's obvious that Harriet flagged Mo's flaws right away but perhaps naively thought she could "fix" her in the same way that Mo thought she could "fix" Harriet's liberal streak. This whole long subplot, while ramshackle and progressing in fits-and-starts, feels very very compellingly like break-ups I've witnessed and break-ups I've been through, where everybody involved is a good person and everybody loves and cares for each other, but the romantic relationship is just corrosive over time. I cannot find a recipe for "sweet and sour soybean succotash," but I can imagine that it's pretty good, presumably a succotash mashed up with sweet and sour tofu. If I remember and if my wife is game I will try to invent this dish out of vegan Frankenstein parts and report back. I like sweet and sour tofu and I like succotash so gosh I bet Mo is partying. U.S. District Judge Gerhard Gesel dismissed all charges against Oliver North on September 16th, 1991, so this is another fairly easy strip to date. We're getting close to the end of Dykes to Watch Out For: The Sequel, or the fourth volume of Firebrand Books' reprint series. It ends with everybody getting ready for New Year's Eve so we'll have a nice crisp transition into a new volume and 1992. How Wonderful! fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Nov 21, 2020 |
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Nov 21, 2020 17:22
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curtadams posted:This is one of the strips which makes me suspect some autobiographical leakage. Harriet's final comment sounds like something you say when a relationship is over, but Mo and Harriet stick it out almost another year, with at least two strips indicating a reasonably happy relationship. I guess I'm used to some Chinese restaurant menus around here referring to tofu as "soybean curd."
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Nov 22, 2020 06:56
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TGIDTWOF Dykes to Watch Out For #121 (1991)   Thea is a pretty good character who remains kind of on the margins of the plot. I guess it makes sense and in a way I really appreciate it-- the core cast is and remains this tight circle of friends and room-mates and romantic partners and later long-term additions tend to either be new partners or relatives or kids. Thea's a co-worker, and you know, usually even if you really like and get along with a coworker they will be out of your life when one of you moves on to a different job. It always really bugs me on workplace sitcoms like The Office or Superstore or whatever when two characters get married and 80% of the guests at the wedding are just people they work with. I think Bechdel keeps Thea at a realistic distance. Anyway that's that! This is a somewhat unusual Madwimmin-centric strip in that there are no book cover puns or anything like that. Edit: Oh, here's a question. Starting with this volume the Firebrand Books editions round out each book with a bonus, extra-long story. Most of these are in-continuity and either flesh out background stuff like Mo's college years or how everybody met, or serve as expanded versions of stuff that happened in the main story. I'll definitely post those. This volume's, however, is a little different-- it's a little autobiographical meditation by Bechdel. Would people be interested in reading this or should I skip ahead onto the next book when I get to that point? How Wonderful! fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Nov 24, 2020 |
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Nov 24, 2020 21:38
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curtadams posted:There's a story about forcing relationships I find entertaining. When Modest Mussorgsky first wrote the opera Boris Godunov the opera house refused to perform it because it didn't have a love affair, and they insisted all operas *must* have love affairs. Mussorgsky wrote in an affair between a gold-digger and the villain, which I've always thought sounded like mockery of that absurd requirement. But, the opera company apparently had a weak sense of irony, because they accepted the altered version and performed it. I love that story and despite being a fan of Gudunov I'd never heard it before! It makes sense, although I really do like the Marina/Grigori duet for what it is.
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Nov 26, 2020 07:15
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Call-a-Spade posted:Hello! I was using this thread to try and catalogue all the missing Dykes to Watch Out For from Essential, but it very quickly outpaced me. As a result I've discovered an archive of Out in the Mountains, a Vermont-based queer newspaper. On top of having, thus far, all the missing comics I've been looking for, there's loads of fun stuff, including a queer Purim party ad (still lowkey mad the Passover strip was omitted from Essential) and this article documenting a then-recent talk Bechdel gave. Thank you for the kind words and for the Out of the Mountains clip. I do have a patchy list of the strips missing from the Essential, although it's missing info from a few Firebrand editions I don't have yet. I can just go ahead and post it volume by volume. 1. Dykes to Watch Out For Entirely pre-serialized strips, none of which are included in the Essential, all of which (I think) have been posted in this thread. 2. More Dykes to Watch Out For I don't have this one, but it includes strips #1-23 as well as the last few non-serial strips and, I just found out, the bonus story "Down to the Skin." I think #1-23 have all been posted in this thread. Non-Essential strips: 6 (just the one!) 3. New, Improved Dykes to Watch Out For This one covers #24-77, including the following non-Essentials: 25, 27, 29, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 47, 48, 55, 56, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 66, 67, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 77. This is I think the most chopped up portion of the strip if you're going by the Essential. 4. Dykes to Watch Out For: The Sequel (78-126, "Serial Monogamy") Missing: 78, 79, 82, 83, 84, 90, 91, 97, 101, 104, 105, 106, 110, 112, 120, 121, 122, 126 5. Spawn of Dykes to Watch Out For (127-170, "Flesh & Blood") Missing: 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 137, 141, 145, 146, 1748, 151, 159 6. Unnatural Dykes to Watch Out For (171-221, "Sentimental Education") Missing: 175, 176, 177, 179, 183, 185, 186, 187, 189, 191, 192, 199, 206, 207, 213, 215, 220 7. Hot, Throbbing Dykes to Watch Out For (220-263, "Sense & Sensibility") Missing: 223, 225, 227, 233, 239, 240, 249, 259 8. Split-Level Dykes to Watch Out For (264-297, "Demographic Rift") Missing: 264, 268, 269, 285, 287 9. Post-Dykes to Watch Out For (298-337) I don't have this one so I don't know what the bonus story is! But it includes the non-Essentials 299, 300, 310, 315, 322, and 329. 10. Dykes and Other Sundry Lifeforms to Watch Out For (338-397, "Replicants") 338, 341, 344, 345, 350, 351, 355, 357, 363, 364, 366, 372, 381, 382, 383, 384, 386, 387, 388, 394, 396 There's one more volumes after that-- Invasion of the Dykes to Watch Out For-- that I also don't have. The remaining non-Essential strips are: 398, 404, 407, 409, 413, 418, 420, 422, 424, 428, 430, 431, 433, 440, 441, 443, 444, 445, 447, 451, and 455. 456-527 in the Essential is a straight run through to the end. I hope this is useful! It was certainly a kick in the butt to me to remember that I just totally forgot to finish tracking some of these volumes down. I do admire the Essential a lot but it annoys me that strips like Pogo and Krazy Kat etc. have very handsomely dated and comprehensive collected editions but stuff like DtWoF does not. Bechdel is currently kind of a big deal in my field and people are doing all sorts of writing on and around her full-length graphic novels and I wish it were easier for scholars to have access to as important a work as Dykes to Watch Out For without having to scour used book sellers and thrift stores. I have similar gripes about Roberta Gregory's Naughty Bits but that's a whole different thing. Edit: On that note-- a double header since #123 is, I think, a Thanksgiving strip! Dykes to Watch Out For (1991) #122   Clarence Thomas was sworn in on October, 23rd, 1991. The title is a reference to his highly-publicized charges of sexual harassment, centering on Anita Hill. Once again the books are a mix, I think, of actual titles and made-up things. The Revolution of Little Girls is a 1992 novel by Blanche McCary Boyd about a young Southern lesbian who grows up and has a whole bildungsroman on her way to Harvard before careening into 60s and 70s counterculture. I assume The Dance of Rage is meant to be The Dance of Anger, a popular book by Dr. Harriet Lerner about how women should recognize and accept anger as a response to toxic relationships. "Tips on Terrorism" doesn't appear to be anything other than something I have now googled so if I'm disappeared I loved you all. Dykes to Watch Out For (1991) #123  If this is a Thanksgiving strip I think a lentil stew is kind of a funny choice. I've been making vegetarian Thanksgivings for many years and I still like to have something kind of substantial and hefty as the main course. This year I did sweet potato enchiladas. They ruled. How Wonderful! fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Nov 26, 2020 |
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Nov 26, 2020 21:53
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Call-a-Spade posted:Thanks for the list! Archive.com has digital copies of the first three volumes, so I'm covered there. It'd be nice to have something more comprehensive, not just because I think every strip should be accounted for, but also because those back-of-the-book novellas are Bechdel's first forays into long-form storytelling, and it seems like a massive gap in her creative history to let them rot in the ether. But for now, diving through these newspapers also gives me a fun excuse to explore more thoroughly the history of the queer community (the one in Vermont, anyway.) If folks are interested I'll try and drop more interesting articles, though it might be off-theme. This is fascinating to me because my wife and are buying a house in VT right now, and she grew up reading DtWOF in the alternative Burlington weekly Seven Days, which started in 1995. I'm curious if it ran DtWoF right from the start-- I've always kind of experienced Vermont as a little bit of a queer oasis and I'd be super interested in seeing what else your research turns up. Edit: Oh, yeah, and #137 does exist. I'll scan it in a second.  
How Wonderful! fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Nov 26, 2020 |
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Nov 26, 2020 22:47
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Parahexavoctal posted:As can be seen in this installment of The Timid Soul (November 14, 1927), you're not the only one. Perhaps that's the same woman as the one from the strip I posted yesterday - the one who was thrilled to learn that Caspar wanted to buy porn. There were a number of at-the-time very daring plays about sexuality and queerness in the mid-late 20s, including Mae West's Sex and its 1927 follow-up The Drag. Eugene O'Neill also very very swiftly rose to almost single-handedly redefine American "legitimate theater" from Anna Christie (1920) onwards and dealt frankly with a whole slew of things that prior to the 20s were usually euphemised or politely ignored on the American stage (Annie Christie itself was about a former prostitute). Love and the Law was a 1913 silent melodrama written, directed by, and starring early megahunk Wallace Reid but it seems unlikely that Caspar and friend are referring to a by-then 14 year old bit of fluff, so I'm kind of stumped but very curious to know what this strip might be referring to! It's certainly not as obvious as Narrowmyth.
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Dec 1, 2020 02:50
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PainterofCrap posted:O god. I forgot about the unfunny travesty that was Miss Peach. Oh my god, the Anders als die Andern reshoot. You are a genius, and that makes absolute total sense. Hirschfeld is a hero of gay and trans rights and I hope that anybody reading this who isn't familiar with him checks out his life story and his work! That's also a really interesting choice for Caspar to be hanging out talking about!
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Dec 1, 2020 04:32
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Little Women is an incredible book, and Jo is a really interesting character. Louisa May Alcott is just the best-- I highly recommend her sketch Transcendental Wild Oats too. Anyway, I apologize for falling way behind on Dykes to Watch Out For, I had been extremely busy with wrapping up the semester and holding student conferences and having various committee meetings. I was planning on resuming this week but my phone was stolen on Saturday so I'm temporarily unable to do much with the books I have on hand. As soon as I have phone access again though I'll get right back on it.
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Dec 15, 2020 07:47
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In a Christmas miracle of sorts, I have a phone again. Unfortunately I'm still having problems with the app I used to scan DtWOF but I suppose something is better than nothing so please accept my apology for the long delay with a crummy phone-pic of Dykes to Watch Out For #124 (1991)   Magic Johnson announced that he was HIV positive on November 7th of 1991, which predictably spurred rumors that he was gay or bisexual, neither of which, as far as I know, were the case. His diagnosis wound up lending some urgent visibility on the reality that heterosexuals were at risk of contracting HIV as well-- something that had, in many corners, still not sunken in as of the early 90s. David Duke, the former National Director of the KKK did in fact run in the Republican presidential primaries in 1992, although he only received 0.94% of the votes and no delegates. This was not his first foray into politics-- he was, grotesquely, in the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1989-1992 and made an unsuccessful bid for Louisiana governor in 1991. I hope you're all having a nice early Christmas Day, or are tucked into bed dreaming of sugarplum Amoses.
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Dec 25, 2020 07:17
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Dykes to Watch Out For #125 (1991) As mentioned before, the feminist record company Olivia Records had pivoted to becoming a travel agency in 1988 as it slipped behind contemporary music trends. Is Shocking Beige a reference to something in particular? I can't tell. Note that somewhat uncommonly Bechdel compensates for her comic being black and white by specifying the color of the tissue paper-- not super graceful but I guess she had to communicate the image somehow. I think the best gag in this one is "Neat Ritual Objects for Your Den!"
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Dec 26, 2020 15:59
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