Award-winning graphic novelist Alison Bechdel, who influenced a generation of people with her nationally syndicated comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, will visit Fairfield University on Thursday, April 14 at 7 p.m.

The comic strip creator will present her work during a discussion titled "Cartoons, Sexuality, and Politics: A conversation with Novelist Alison Bechdel." The free event is open to the public, and will be held in the dining room of the Dolan School of Business.

Since its inception in 1983, D ykes to Watch Out For has chronicled the lives of a group of friends living in a medium-sized American city and combined soap-opera story lines with social commentary on the treatment of gay men and lesbians in America. Comics Journal said "Bechdel's art distills the pleasures of Friends and The Nation; we recognize our world in it, with its sorrows and ironies," and the alternative magazine The Utne Reader called Dykes to Watch Out For "One of the greatest hits of the Twentieth Century."

Born in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, Bechdel has also written for The New York Times , Ms. and Slate and published the graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic in 2006. The book made The New York Times bestseller list, was named one of the 10 Best Books of the Year by Time magazine and won the 2007 Stonewall Book Award for Nonfiction.

The lecture program is sponsored by the Humanities Institute in the College of Arts and Sciences ; the Center for Academic Excellence ; the MFA in Creative Writing Program , the Honors Program ; the Women's Studies Program , and the Departments of English , Politics , Sociology and Anthropology , and Communication .

For more information contact Gita Rajan at (203) 254-4000 ext. 2508 or Sally O'Driscoll at (203) 254-4000 ext. 2804.

Posted On: 04-11-2011 11:04 AM

Volume: 43 Number: 275