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Dykes to Watch Out For: Difference between revisions
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This long-running [[Slice of Life]] series by Alison Bechdel about the lives, loves, and politics of a group of lesbians in an [[Where the Hell Is Springfield?|unspecified midwestern town]] is one of the most popular of all LGBT comic strips. Originally introduced as a series of one-shot vignettes in 1983, the strip shortly moved to its serialized format with recurring characters. After writing the strip for more than 25 years, Bechdel put it on hiatus in 2008 to concentrate on her graphic memoir ''Fun Home''. She later continued the series of memoirs with ''Are You My Mother'' in 2012. She revived the strip on November 23, 2016.
{{Tropecodifier}}
* [[The Bechdel Test]]
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* [[Artifact Title]]: The seed of the strip was a drawing titled "Marianne, dissatisfied with her morning brew: Dykes to Watch Out For, plate no. 27", "as if it were just one in a series of illustrations of mildly demonic lesbians." She drew more and more "plates", and kept the title when it shifted to a strip format about various aspects of lesbian culture, and also when it shifted to the serialized format with recurring characters. As the cast grew to include people of other genders and sexual identities, she lampshaded the title by titling a recent collection of her strips ''Dykes and Sundry Other Carbon-based Life-forms to Watch Out For''.
* [[Author Tract]]: Bechdel describes the strip as "half op-ed column and half endless serialized Victorian novel," and true to form nearly every strip has some political ranting done by the characters. The angriest sentiments are given a lot of [[Self-Deprecation]] - Mo and Clarice always have someone nearby to point out that their excessive anger is not helping anything.
* [[
* [[Bi the Way]]: A minor early character (Naomi) is bisexual; after she fades from the strip, Sparrow, one of the main characters, begins to identify as a bi-dyke, starts a relationship with Stuart, and eventually has a child with him.
* [[Bland-Name Product]]: Does this constantly to [[Parody Names|parodic effect]]: "medusa.com," "Bounders Books & Muzak," "Bunns & Noodle," "Bed Bath & Bite Me," "Papaya Republic," etc. When Lois, Ginger and Sparrow have a potluck, Sydney brings a bucket of Florida Fried Fowl. This troper's personal favourite was a publishing house, "Furrier Sprout & Genoux."
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* [[Granola Girl]]: Most of the characters are well into what much of the heterosexual mainstream would consider this side of the spectrum, but it is played straight (for want of a better word). Ironically, in the last couple of years, straight male Stuart is the most [[Granola Girl]] character in the cast!
** However, the one-shot character called Milkweed, who appeared in a few strips in the 1980s, was a critique of being ''too'' much of a [[Granola Girl]]. Even the DTWOF main characters (including Sparrow) were irritated by her.
* [[Has Two Mommies]]: There are five children of lesbians in the strip. The first and most prominent is Raffi, son of Clarice and Toni. His birth came complete with [[Lamaze Class]] and [[Screaming Birth]] (everyone except Toni, the birth mom, went bananas) featured in a bonus segment in the collection ''Spawn of Dykes to Watch Out For''. When he starts going to school, a fellow student teases him, calling him "Heather." He has been friends since childhood with Stella, daughter of Toni's long-term extramarital crush Gloria and her partner Ana. Mo's ex Harriet decided to have a child, Isabel, as a single mother. Sparrow has a child, J.R. (Jiao Raizel) with Stuart. Finally, Jasmine enters the strip with a child, Jonas, who begins to [[
** Raffi and Stella's have a classmate who is the adopted daughter of a gay male couple.
* [[Het Is Ew]]: Lois and Ginger react this way to Sparrow dating Stuart.
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* [[Tastes Like Diabetes]]: According to Sydney, her chemo clinic.
{{quote|'''Sidney:''' The TV's blaring, the place is littered with cutesy little angels and bears and now they'll have the Christmas crap up too. I think the entire collectible kitsch industry is kept afloat by chemo nurses. }}
* [[
* [[Viewers Are Geniuses]]: With two characters being academics, and Bechdel herself a bibliophile, there are many academic and literary references well outside the usual [[Small Reference Pools]]. This troper took a gender theory class where she recognized quite a few theories and writers she had first heard of through this strip. The occasional latin pun crops up as well, and many political issues get discussed in depth.
* [[What Happened to the Mouse?]]: After Lois humiliates Emma by kissing her in the public, she is never seen or mentioned again (except in one panel in one of the [[Breaking the Fourth Wall]] strips mentioned above).
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[[Category:Queer Media]]
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