Lepakkoelämää IV: Rakkaus & muita onnettomuuksia

Dykes to Watch Out For #4

by Alison Bechdel, Tarja Sahlstén (translator)

Alison Bechdel on kronikoinut kuuden ystävyksen
elämää jo 21 vuoden ajan. Porukkaan mahtuu
niin tutkijoita, sosiaalityöntekijöitä kuin kirjakaupan
myyjiäkin. Lepakkoelämää-sarjan neljännessä osassa jatkuvat naisten poliittiset keskustelut, ihmissuhdesolmut, urakäänteet ja haasteet jälkikasvun kanssa. Vasemmisto­intellektuellien verenpainetta nostavat Bushin valinta toiselle kaudelle ja sitä kautta niin Amerikan sisä- kuin ulkopolitiikkakin. Filosofisissa ruokapöytäkeskusteluissa ruoditaan uskonasioita ja kirjakaupoissa ja kahviloissa ihmetellään parisuhdekuvioita.

Bechdel on palkittu
omaelämäkerrallisesta sarjakuvaromaanistaan Hautuukoti
(2006) moneen eri otteeseen, muun muassa vuonna 2007 ”sarjakuvien Oscarilla”, Eisner-palkinnolla. Hänen ominta alaansa
ovat kuitenkin juuri nämä elämaniloa pursuavat stripit,
jotka ovat hurmanneet lukijansa ympäri maailman.


Genres: Queer, Comics, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Humor, LGBT, Lesbian

94 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1992

Reviews

[Nora]

OH MY GOD I DIDN'T KNOW HOW DID I NOT KNOW!!!

[Mel]

I'm liking the full version so much more than the "essential" added storylines, particularly the shrink, are great. I also really like how it gives you much more of a sense of place and time with all the added details. The Serial monogamy story at the end is also really great! Very glad I was able to find the original books versus the collection.

[Emily]

Welp now I have to track all of them down. I read Essential DTWOF but reading them sequentially is so much fun.

[HeavyReader]

There was a time in my life when I spoke about the characters in these comics--Mo, Toni, Clarice, Sparrow, and all the rest--as if they were real people, as if they were my friends. That fact speaks to how real and how great both the writing and art are.

[Ricky]

I'm probably going to give the same review to all of Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For.
hilarious, relevant, and political

[Emily]

By this book, Harriet is having a seriously bad time as Mo seems to be falling in love with either therapy or her therapist and they haven’t had sex for a month. Is it fear of growing apart? Mo’s great idea is they move in together – cue for therapist to put head in hands. Meanwhile, the disabled artist gets the senior job at the bookstore – frustration! Ginger may be about to get a girlfriend – but she seems to go for the unobtainable, long distance type – will Malika finally get beyond being a penpal?? And is Clarice and Toni’s commitment ceremony a cop-out to patriarchal attitudes or a great leap forward and an example to us all? Meanwhile, Mo’s serial monogamy in a small community makes for a complicated network diagram. And in these terrible times, what is there to celebrate on New Year’s Eve, Mo wants to know, when really Harriet would like her to get out of the bath and get to the party before midnight.

[Pia]

Lepakkoelämän viimeisessä osassa meno oli miulle vähän kädenlämpöistä, vaikka tokihan mie luin, kun aiemmatkin olivat maistuneet. Ja menihän tämäkin, mutta aika synkäksi muuttui taivaanranta ja tunnelma oli aika ahistunutkin. Ainakin miulla.

Tässä osassa lukukokemukseen vaikutti myös se, että mie en enää muistanut tuon ajan poliittisia uutisia ja tapahtumia kovin hyvin, enkä oikein päässyt Bechdelin vihjeistä jyvälle. Iso osa sarjan viehätystä karisi tämän vuoksi. Samoin päähenkilöiden ihmissuhteet ja elämäntilanteet tuntuivat olevan sen verran rusetilla, että sääliksi kävi.

[rowan]

Why I read it: ........and I'm running out of things to say about these.........

Thoughts: This has become "my soaps" because they're as addictive as my grandma's favourite daily serving of drama, The Young & the Restless. I hope everyone's everything works out. Lois's situationship, Clarice and Toni's baby journey, Mo and Harriet's relationship (with Mo's therapist as their invisible third, I reckon), Ginger's long distance thing, Thea's... nothing, because Thea is perfect. But I'm dying to know what happens next.

Would I recommend it: Yes.

[Taylor]

Highly entertaining. In my opinion, this serial doesn't hold a candle to the flame that is Bechdel's masterpiece, Fun Home, or its follow up, Are You My Mother? That said, it's been fun to lose myself in this comic, and the bonus feature in the back, Serial Monogamy, is thought provoking and resonant. But MAN, I would not have wanted to date Bechdel in her early thirties. Though I do find her self deprecation, and her transparency about being pretty neurotic and pessimistic, to be endearing.

[Ananya Garg]

I always enjoy Allison Bechdel's work, and this volume of Dykes to Watch Out For didn't disappoint! funny & engaging, I want to read the entire series. This volume touched on interpersonal plot as well as larger political themes and it just left me wanting to be a part of this quirky group of friends.

[Nicole]

I love these comics. And I like that I'm reading them 25 years after they were originally published - it's a time capsule into the politics of 1992. I kind of want to tell them - just wait!!

[Madeleine]

So deeply funny how nothing has changed. I need more Jezana

[percy]

these comics are far too addictive for someone (me) who needs to be packing up all their belongings and moving right now

[Oscar]

I’ve met every archetype Bechdel has depicted and I’ve either despised or been pissed off by them or had a situationship that made me despise them. But when they’re cartoons I love them

[Julie Rylie]

I've been reading DTWOF in a totally random way, first from the middle, then from the end, then to the beginning. It just have to do with their availability in the library. but it looks like I'll never get my hands on the #1 and #5 book coz they don't have it ='( And the last one I am definitely going to order.

Anyway reading this one makes you have an insight of how this characters really come to life after all those years, they really grow older and more mature. I love Alison Bechdel more than I could ever express.

On this book the major topics are the beginning of Mo's therapy, monogamy, Clarice's affair with Ginger, Clarice and Toni's wedding, Lois relationship with an older woman that already have a girlfriend, etc etc etc. And of course the usual social critic thinking in every short story that makes this book series really worth reading. <3

[Misha]

Really enjoying this, but it is depressing to read about the politics of 1990 and see that little or nothing has changed. Here is an example of a political harague that the character Mo goes on: "...And so Bush and his bloodthirsty buddies in the defense biz can play 'whose is bigger' in the Persian Gulf, and prove that we need even more money for military spending! And look at this! The media don't even question what we're doing over there! They just whip everyone into a frenzy over 'protecting the American way of life' and call Saddam Hussein 'Hitler' to boost their ratings!"
SOUND FAMILIAR? Sigh...

[Anna Reta Maria]

Hauskojen suhdekiemuroiden sijaan tämä neljäs albumi käsittelee enemmän keski-ikäistyvien naisten elämää ja 2000-luvun alun politiikkaa. Samalla kun politiikassa esiintyy juttuja, joiden tapahtumisen muistan itse, sarjakuvasta tuntuu katoavan se sydän, josta pidin aiemmissa osissa. Edelleenhän tämä on mukavaa sarjakuvaa, mutta viihdyttävyys ja herttaisuus ei ole samaa luokkaa, kuin aiemmin. Toisaalta, en usko, että Bechdelin ensisijainen tavoite on ollut tehdä viihdyttävää sarjakuvaa.

[Leah Horlick]

So I own the Collected DTWOF, but I found this in a used bookstore in Saskatoon and have vowed to collect as many of the original comics as possible -- there are some strips that were left out in the anthology. This particular one has a side strip by Bechdel called "Serial Monogamy" which I especially enjoyed/overidentified with as per usual.

[Brian]

a good gay read, even if you're not gay. i did, however, resent the implication in the short "serial monogamy" that only lesbians are part of a great social experiment to transcend outmoded behavioral paradigms. i'm pretty sure the whole LGBT community is a part of that much-vaunted experiment.

[Maximilian Klein]

Bechdel strains her characters through understanding their own internalized logic of oppression even after their supposed awakenings. That is a good way to keep new readers interested without having to understand back plots. Each strip entertaining even if it turns slice of life if not punchy.

[Eve Kay]

Didn't make me laugh anymore, I was more like catching up with the gals to see what they've been up to lately. I don't want this to be it though and wish I'll get my hands on more of the Dykes in the near future...

[Strawny]

My daughter bought this whole series and now I'm addicted. It's like the Archies of Lesbian culture. Now I am going to need a TV series to keep it going because I'm about to read the last one!

[Annie]

Quick read with a lot of interesting talking points and views of not only sexuality, but what it means to be a woman, and to be a lesbian. Really amusing and enjoyable at the same time.

[Janita]

3,5⭐

[Jocelyn Beane]

all i can think about is that i want to read more