Alison Bechtel's Fun Home was regarded by the big gorgonzolas of modern literature as probably the best book since the New Testament, but I was profoundly underwhelmed. I was an ingrate. I couldn't care less and I said so. Now I find, years later, that I'd come at Ms Bechtel completely the wrong way. Fun Home was like being introduced to Woody Allen by watching Midnight in Paris - who would ever think that fool director could have made Manhattan or Husbands and Wives ? Or as if the most widely praised Dickens novel was Hard Times . But I dunno, something nagged at me and eventually I got this hefty volume and once past page numero uno I was HOOKED. 
 This is the stuff, forget Fun Home. This is the real fun home. 
 So here we have a comic strip which between 1987 and 2008 told the sardonically hilarious tales of the intertangled lives of ten or so gay women characters along with a token man, a dog and a few babies and kids and parents. Like any soap opera or long running sitcom - 21 years of romance and heartbreak and wondering if a dildo by its very symbolically male presence critically undermines and indeed openly mocks even the most determined sapphist lifestyle or if it's just seven inches of plastic fun. 
 In this book we get lots of gentle and not so very gentle spoofing of the entire world of right on gay women (and right on left politics in general). The cringe-making and frankly baffling business of transgendering (I think it bites that you can't go to your friends' annual sweat lodge and Tupperware party anymore just because you're a guy now ) , gay marriage, gay adoption, drag king balls, lesbian bed death, it's all here. And it could only be spoofed like this from the inside. 
 Whilst I must candidly admit to not being a lesbian myself, nevertheless I completely connected with DTWOF through the rad politics. I have been in rooms where people have said many very similar things over the years. The names change (Bush instead of Bush, Cameron instead of Blair, al Qaida instead of Smersh) but the rad leftist sentiments are heartwarmingly consistent. ( "We're here to stop the military build-up in the Middle East, not to ogle women!" ). 
 Throughout the 390 pages AB's characters wear t shirts with slogans like 
 I DON'T CARE IF HE'S DEAD I STILL WANT TO IMPEACH NIXON 
 and read books called 
 THE ETHICAL SLUT 
 and newspapers with alarming headlines like 
 LOOKIN' PRESIDENTIAL:CLINTON BOMBS BEJEEZUZ OUT OFSUDANESE PENICILLIN PLANT 
 HOUSE VOTES: FUEL EFFICIENCY IN SUVS - NO; EARTH IS FLAT, YES 
 BUSH : IF SADDAM WON'T SUBMIT TO A COLONOSCOPY WE WILL HAVE TO INVADE 
 And ignore the radio which says things like 
 After reports of dangling chads being eaten during the manual recount Republicans are demanding stool samples from all ballot counters... 
 Some great moments: 
 Lois: So long, buckos. I'm off to the first International Drag-King Extravaganza in Columbus. 
 Sparrow: God, this drag king craze is so retrograde. Men are destroying the planet! Why compete to see who can mimic them most convincingly? 
 Lois : Oh, put it in a term paper! 
 Lois, in fact, has the best withering putdowns: 
 Mo : I can't stop thinking about her. It's the best sex I ever had. 
 Lois: Not necessarily a glowing testimonial in your case. 
 Lois: Oh, you guys don't need to hear about my problems. 
 Ginger: Are you kidding? I'd much rather hear about your peoblems than work on my dissertation. 
 Lois: Thank you, Ginger. Considering you'd rather fellate Bill Clinton than work on your dissertation, that's very generous. 
 On the problems of gay parenting: 
 Toni : No, Raffi, you can't have a father. You have two mothers. 
 Raffi: Den can I have a giant dog wif thwee heads wike in da movie? 
 Clarice : Okay. 
 And when one of the women suddenly starts going out with an actual man : 
 Sparrow is leafing through a copy of Brides magazine which has just arrived through the mail. 
 Sparrow: Oh my God! I bet my mom did this! Ever since I came out to her about Stuart she thinks it means I'm straight. She can't understand that I'm a bisexual lesbian! 
 Ginger: Well, it's a nuance that can elude the best of us. 
 Another couple of favourite moments - I could have chosen around 50 - Mo has asked Lois to do her CV which Americans call a resume (I don't know why but they often call things by their wrong names) : 
 Lois: Let's starts with your last job. 
 Mo: Proofreader and production assistant for Gayly Forward News 
 And before that? 
 Office assistant at the Abortion Rights Action Council 
 Okay, and before that? 
 Delivery person for the Common Womon Bread Collective 
 Hmmm, this isn't sounding too promising. How about volunteer work? 
 I have good editing skills from my two years on the staff of the Lesbian Rag and I got counselling skills when I volunteered at the battered women's shelter... 
 Mo, haven't you done anything less progressive?... You must have done some work with little or no redeeming social value? 
 Second : Mo's friend Toni is miserable: 
 Mo : It's not that bad 
 Toni : I find out my happy, secure six-year relationship has been a total sham and it's not that bad? 
 Mo : Toni, come on! I know you're in a lot of pain, but you hafta look at the grand scheme of things! Listen, the environment is polluted beyond the point of no return, nickels and dimes are allocated for Aids research while billions go into radar systems for blowing up civilians in the Persian Gulf and we've got to spend the next two months assaulted with hypocritical hype as two morally bankrupt white boys gear up for another electoral farce! Having a rough time in your relationship kinda pales in comparison, huh? 
 Toni : Gee, Mo, thanks. I can always count on you. 
 Alison Bechdel's cartooning style is forever beautiful, just a few economic lines and touches and you have a real person who you swear you saw at the supermarket only yesterday. This is the first graphic novel I've read which is as big as a non-graphic novel - these pages are packed. I was sorry when it ended. Dykes to die for. Recommended. 
 and 
 by popular demand...