Autobiography and the Graphic Novel

Moderated by Deborah Vankin
Thursday, May 10, 2012
00:00:00
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Episode Summary

Bechdel follows her best-selling graphic memoir, Fun Home, with a second tale of filial sleuthing-this time about her mother: voracious reader, music lover, amateur actor, and also a woman, unhappily married to a gay man. Bechdel's quest for answers concerning the mother-daughter gulf leads through psychoanalysis and Dr. Seuss to a truce that will move all adult children of gifted mothers.


Participant(s) Bio

Alison Bechdel is the author of the bestselling memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, which was named a Best Book of the Year by Time, New York Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Village Voice, and the San Francisco Chronicle, among others. For twenty-five years, she wrote and drew the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, a visual chronicle of modern life--queer and otherwise. Bechdel is guest editor of Best American Comics, 2011, and has drawn comics for Slate, McSweeney's, Entertainment Weekly, Granta, and The New York Times Book Review.

Deborah Vankin is a journalist and graphic novelist. As a Los Angeles Times staff writer, she covers the spectrum of arts & culture, entertainment and nightlife -- including books and comics, the art gallery and street art scenes, alternative comedy, indie film and pop culture in general. Her 2011 graphic novel "Poseurs" follows three teenagers, from very different corners of L.A., into the underworld of L.A. clubs and Hollywood parties. She's now working on a second graphic novel.



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