Horticultural Nostalgia

I am currently reading archived "Dykes to Watch Out For," comic strips. This is what I did when I had down time at the Resource Center (except this was before the internet archive so I only saw what was in the books of strips. Thank you intranets). I am not a big comic person, although I do have a few that I enjoy, but I love this strip. I always forget about it and so the return is always sweet. I love Alison Bechdel's observations and characterizations of queer life. It is interesting to see how the comic has transformed with "the GLBT movement" (yes, I know this is a contentious term, but I am using it for simplicity's sake) to become one of the most hilarious and accurate records of how this movement has progressed. The beginning strips deal almost exclusively with "lesbian" issues, but as our communities have expanded, become more diverse, and had a multitude of issues intermal and external to the "community" in the national spotlight, Bechdel has extended her scope to include characters who are not "dykes" in the strictest definition of the term. It has become less homo/hetero centered and more all-inclusively queer. However, all of these characters certainly have dyke sensibilites in some capacity. When I read it, I always get the fluttering feeling I used to have when I first met lesbians as teenager; the excitement of meeting people who seemed to be fully realized versions of what was then, to me, only a feeling. I can connect many of the characters in this strip to myself and a lot of the dykes I met when I was sixteen. The critique of current events in each strip also adds to this nostalgiac feeling, especially, during the halcyon Clinton years.

Thank you, Alison Bechdel, for showing us that we can have an activist spirit and still have a sense of humor about it.