The Personal IS Political: Alison Bechdel

Like a lot of people who first hear about Alison Bechdel, my first encounter with her was in the form of Fun Home, her 2006 graphic novel memoir which went onto become an international best-seller, much like others in the same autobiographical tradition, Persepolis and Maus. However, it was only further curiosity which revealed for me the fact that Bechdel had already established her credentials as a comic strip writer and illustrator with her long running comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For(DTWOF, 1987-2008). If anything, she had long been an important figure for the LGBT community, DTWOF having been one of the earliest representations of lesbians in popular culture. There was also the matter of “The Bechdel Test”, which many avid movie lovers would recognize as the feminist metric for ascertaining gender bias in films. The term was taken from one of the strips in DTWOF. 

Understanding Bechdel’s works require a deeper understanding of the author’s personal space as compared to other authors, embodying in every sense the aphorism “the personal is political”. The world of graphic novel memoirists is a small one; a lesbian is a rarity in that world. Bechdel has often been referred to as a “lesbian Woody Allen”, her sketches demonstrating a similar fretful, insecure, neurotic alter ego as Allen’s comic persona.  Having come out as a lesbian at the age of 19, her works draw a lot from her experiences as one of the marginalized, whilst simultaneously exploring from her identity as a literary-inclined, socially aware and active member of society. 

This solipsism plays out in various ways in all her works. DTWOF is a witty, whimsical, and a politically charged queer comic strip, and Bechdel herself describes it as “half op-ed column and half endless, serialized Victorian novel”. At the center of the strip is Mo, the slightly neurotic, ultra-feminist lesbian and her friend and social circles comprising of feisty lesbians carving, and sometimes fighting for, their own space in the world. The motley crew of characters constantly engage in banter rich with not only life’s ironies, but also references to current events, and have ideological discussions all the time on the courses of their lives. Spread as it was across almost more than two decades, it offers much in the way of both satire as well as contemplation: there is much to discuss, debate and dissect in the way of themes as heartbreak and loss, gender, sexuality, acceptance, the government, technology, etc. One of my personal favourites is a strip called “Your Children Are Not Your Own”, where a lesbian couple discuss their travails of their transgender child, and the birth mother ends the strip on a poignant note, “But I have higher hopes for my child than conformity, okay?” By turns funny, angry, revolutionary and sexy, DTWOF was The L Word of comics, before there was The L Word.

But personally however, Fun Home, at least for me, results in a far better, as well as a tighter narrative, which engages with the intersection of the personal and the political realms. Subtitled “A Family Tragicomic”, the graphic memoir explores Bechdel’s complex relationship with her father whilst growing up in rural Pennsylvania, and focuses mainly on how her own coming out coincided with the revelation that her father was a closeted homosexual. Thriving with literary allusions and references, this is a work wherein by focusing on the convoluted, dysfunctional ties of her family, Bechdel engages in such themes as fluidity of gender, the conscious shaping of one’s personality, sexual orientation, and even death (not least because the book’s title comes from the family nickname for their funeral home business). There is a wealth of information, but tying it all is the fact that for better or worse, we are products of our upbringing, and that we are indebted to our parents, even when we don’t want to.

Are You My Mother? follows as a sequel to Fun Home, and here Bechdel shifts the focus on to her mother, who was trapped in an unhappy marriage, but could not mitigate its effects, being extremely unaffectionate with her children. In trying to understand her mother’s cold demeanour, Bechdel supplies a lot of psychoanalytic information- having been, in her own words, “in therapy nearly my entire adult life”. There is a lot to digest in here, much more than Fun Home, and this work, her latest, only strengthens her oeuvre with its rich drawings and text.

Reading Bechdel is a must for not only graphic novel and LGBT fiction enthusiasts, but for all those who prefer well-drawn female characters. In a world which thrives on stereotypes, Bechdel’s portfolio comprises, to quote her, “the secret subversive goal.. that women..are regular human beings”.

A Riddle Wrapped In A Mystery Inside An Enigma- Peter Milligan’s Enigma

Alan Moore’s Watchmen forever changed the way superheroes had been perceived till then, and reams have been written regarding the same. But not enough ink, digital or otherwise, has been spared on Peter Milligan’s Enigma, an astonishing work of meta-comic philosophizing if there ever was one. In fact, Grant Morrison himself declared Enigma to be a far more ‘grown-up’  book over Watchmen(though, to be fair, Morrison and Moore have had a long-running rivalry that results in rather passive aggressive statements) . Part of it has to do with the fact that Milligan has never been able to capture the imagination of comic lovers the way Moore has, probably because he chooses stranger narrative methods than Moore to convey his message. Which is rather a sad state of affairs indeed, because personally, I consider reading Enigma a watershed moment in my love affair with comics.

What Enigma says about comic books, and our childhood adulation of superheroes, is quite some food for thought. The basic premise of the story is that Michael Smith, with a life as uninteresting and insipid as his name, is suddenly thrust into a maelstrom when superheroes from his favourite childhood comic book series, The Enigma, suddenly, come to life. The catch lies in the fact that these are not your run-of-the-mill heroes out to save the world- if anything, they claim lives and create their own version of hell on earth. As Smith teams up with Titus Bird, the bitter homosexual creator of the series who wrote the work during drug-fuelled binges, he is forced to confront not just the power of his childhood fantasies, but also his own self- who he truly is, and his purpose in life. Bird cannot be more invested in his long-forgotten series, but Smith realizes his nebulous connection to the strange happenings around him, and sets out along with a reluctant Bird to find these antagonists, to vanquish or understand them, as the case maybe.

Milligan’s work is preoccupied with the themes of sexuality and identity, and in combining a meta-narrative on comics, he presents a powerful take on what it means to take responsibility for one’s self and one’s creations. Primary amongst the superheroes who come to life in Smith’s world is the titular Enigma, the only one who is not an antagonist, though that in itself does not make him the saviour. It’s rather hard to really critique the series without getting away much of the plot, so here it is- Enigma is the true catalyst for the series of events in the book, and remains a mystery throughout.

Twenty-five years prior to the present events, he had been dropped and abandoned in a well as a baby, and grows up amongst lizards, able to understand their language. His entire existence is rattled when he is forced to move out into the real world, and in the process, begins to shape his reality to cope with things. By a long chain of coincidences, the world he fashions for himself also gives birth to the degenerate heroes of Bird’s work, and he constantly  reflects upon the harsh, ugly nature of the world which forces us to hide our true natures.

In the character of Enigma Milligan invests his entire range of thought regarding identity and sexuality that he tries to put across to the readers, mainly via his conversations with Smith.  He forces the latter to confront his true self – by turning him homosexual and embarking on a relationship with him, though offering to ‘make’ Smith straight again. This transformation and the subsequent offer to rescind it is rather problematic, as if homosexuality is a choice, but by and large, this is one of the best depictions of homosexuality in the mainstream comic genre. The undercurrents of Smith’s confusion at the crazy turn of events in his life coinciding with his sexual re-awakening provide for an endearing take on two people in love, as they learn to navigate the ways of a world which does its best to ensure that things are never easy for human beings, but especially those who challenge the status-quo, be it with their sexuality or even their stray thoughts.

Sex, love, death, imagination and lizards have been taken to their very extreme renditions in Milligan’s masterpiece, and one hopes that this cult book is soon brought to screen. It has great scope for a cinematic adaptation, and a greater exploration of the theme of identity, sexual and otherwise, which is paramount to it.

“One large-scale, shimmeringly holographic tapestry”: Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles

Imagine, if you will, that you are a down-on-inspiration writer reeling from highly acerbic, scathing reviews of your latest work. Stretch that setting to include a bizarre trip across the world where the only way to numb thepain of rejection is that tried-and-tested, if somewhat cliched, method of drowning your sorrows in the choicest narcotics available to mankind.

Extend this fictional setting to allow for the plausibility of being abducted by aliens in Kathmandu during this drug-induced trance. Next, consider that you were forced at prodding-point by this rather literary-inclined bunch of extraterrestrial beings to sum up the entire dilemma of humanity, its core existential crises, its weirdnesses, its –isms, its quirks, oddities, triumphs and defeats, exhilirations and ebbs, the whole shebang- into a sprawling yet tight comic narrative spanning about 1500 pages. If you were to take the possibility of such a scenario at face value  (and with no irony whatsoever), you’d end up being the madman/genius/prophet known as Grant Morrison, narrative overlord of that astonishing piece of human endeavour known as The Invisibles. (And  a legion of comic fans would be ready to decree a new world order proclaiming you as the one and true God).

To sum up the plot of The Invisibles within a few lines is to really disgrace, and disrespect, the level of complexity involved in this crazy ride of Good vs Evil as you have never experienced before. When I employ the phrase “as you have never experienced before”, I realize that it comes across as yet another trying not-too-hard-to-be-hyperbolic review about a comic series which has had a significant legacy. But as a cultural artefact that addresses issues which have been central to some of humanity’s pressing concerns, such as the nature of existence and reality, the meaning of truth and beauty, the cumbersome nature of moral dilemmas, etc., it truly sets a high benchmark – there is nothing even remotely, across all visual/literary media, close to it. In the effort to pour out into his magnum opus nearly every form of distilled philosophy dear to him, Morrison has set up a work which can read like a laundry list of all bizarre esoteric interests under the sun – psychedelic drugs, the apocalypse, sadomasochism, Eastern philosophy, conspiracy theories, alien abduction, hyperreality, Dadaism,freemasons, The Romantic period, political revolutions, symbolism, et al. To ask of oneself “What is The Invisibles all about?” is to set up a question which defies all attempts at a linear, coherent narrative. Pick up one strand, and you are bound to come up with a whole complex web of intriguing details.

The core of the series revolves around the “Invisible” struggle between agents of the Outer Church, the prime antagonists who secretly run the world, preventing humanity from reaching its highest potential, and a motely crew of not-so-organized part anarchists, part human gods called the “Invisibles”- our only hope for the survival of humanity. They incude Dany (later Jack Frost), an angsty teenager whose entry into the Invisibles kickstarts the series, King Mob, thecharismatic if somewhat violent leader of the group, Lord Fanny, a glamorous Brazilian transvestite with a tragic past, a young black woman ironically identified as Boy, and Ragged Robin, a telepath hiding secrets. The battle between the two groups involves shennanigans of truly epic proportions, including time-travel,fiction-and-history-traversing,brushes with voodoo and astral projection, breaking the fourth wall, etc. As the series progresses from one level of complex saving-the-world-battle to another, taking us through serpentine twists and turns that often defy all expected forms of weirdness, what one truly tries to struggle with is the whole “POINT” of the comic- this is not, in Morrison’s own words, “just a comic book….it’s a spell.” The writer does not even relieve the readers in making the case for a rather neat end- no sirree; if anything, it defies even more when it comes to standard apocalyptic tropes, compelling the breathless reader to not just simply sit bank and let it all sink in, but have him/her re-read the entire gargantuan thing all over again. A comic to put the best of complex novels to shame, this is not an easy read, and not just when it comes to “reading”  the text itself. There is a James Joyce/Thomas Pynchon-level complexity to this series which makes it hard to swallow. Gaiman’s Sandman might have been known as the most “intellectual” amongst graphic novels, but it is The Invisibles which really pushes the boundaries of what is conceivable in such a medium.

As the inspiration for The Matrix and countless other works which have prolifilerated the media since it came into being, The Invisibles requires a more personal reading of the author himself, and not just what’s on the rather convoluted-at-times pages of the comic. If Morrison’s words are to be taken without any pinch of salt, he intended the series as a hypersigil- a work of art that is also meant to be magic, propelling culture to have new conversations and head in a better direction. As far as intentions go, while the achievement of thelatter aim is a matter of immense debate, it can easily be said that as far as giving culture, and especially that of the 90s and early 2000s, a new talking point, The Invisibles has more than surpassed expectations. To add to the personal element of the series, King Mob is said to be modelled on Morrison himself, and the bald look and the bizarro swagger are just the surface of it. In various interviews, documentaries and academic studies of this cult favourite, the intersection of Morrison’s personal experiences (especially of his trysts with acid and magic) with the fictional narrative has been explored exhaustively. But what this involvement of the personal really serves to do is to make one realize that fiction serve a much larger purpose than merely entertain you or give one a little fodder for thought- if done right, it quite literally has the power to change the way you think about the world. Leafing through the work one realizes that the labyrinth that Morrison has the luck to call his mind is an extraordinary palace storing wondrous literary, mythological, historical and religious allusions that not only speak for a highly retentive memory, but an ability to allude to those things in a manner which befits the story-telling astonishingly. And to do so in order to drive home the point that the world one inhabits is more than just what meets the eye is an amazing feat in itself. After all, few can accomplish the task of breathing life into a Marquis de Sade to make a commentary on the nature of the world’s illusions.

If 42 is Douglas Adams’s rather dry answer to the “Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe and Everything”, you might consider re-evaluating that to The Invisibles. Get ready for the ride of your life, folks.

An Unbearable Lightness of Being: Bryan Talbot’s The Tale of One Bad Rat

Tackling taboo subjects like incest and child sexual abuse in fiction come with their own set of ill-defined and invisibly drawn boundaries- How much is too much? How much objectivity is allowed before it becomes an inhumane, or worse, gratuitous portrayal? More importantly, what is allowed, and what is not, in such painful renditions?  Add to that a visual medium like a graphic novel, and the issue compounds exponentially- the graphic nature of scenes can get visibly uncomfortable for those who might have undergone such prior trauma, or those who prefer their truths boiled down. Which is why Bryan Talbot’s The Tale of One Bad Rat is such a seminal piece of work in this arena – this is no long-winded execution of a sensitive topic glorifying the victim complex. This is a sublime, mature, and wholly lovely handling of a serious subject which is bound to make many uncomfortable.

The story starts as we come across Helen Potter, a runaway teenage girl on the hideout from abusive parents, trying to make her way in an increasingly hostile, frightening and bewildering world out there. The first half of the book is dedicated to navigating those scary pathways that a teenage girl left to her own devices is bound to encounter in a predatory world, though it is never quite made clear until the very end who or what she is running away from. It is heartbreaking in a way that only the most endearingly naïve of human actions can be.

One of the key strengths of this book is the way it plays upon the titular “rat”, and how it lends symbolism in so many ways. Helen’s pet rat, a harmless, comforting creature, is her one source of comfort, and the only being she relates to, as she is misunderstood and neglected, much in the way rats are in society in general. Juxtapose the word “bad” against it, and you open up a Pandora’s box- who really is “the bad rat” here? Is it Helen, who like many other child abuse survivors, blame themselves for their trauma? The literal rat, whose associations with dirt and disease, automatically slots it so? Are they the figurative rats, humans who prey on the vulnerabilities of the young and the innocent? Or is it simply the case of The Tale of One Bad Rat, an imaginary lost Beatrix Potter book? The book is a layered delight in this case.

The other equally, if not more so, strong point of the book is the way it interweaves Beatrix Potter’s life with Helen’s. It’s nothing as simple as parallel narratives of two lost girls – oh no, Talbot is more deft than such a cliché. Helen is drawn to Potter’s works not merely as an escapist tactic or more superficially, as those who shares the last surname, but because she relates to the prisons that held them both down (they both had dysfunctional pasts they sought refuges from in art). Helen runs away from an abusive situation without quite thinking through the repercussions of such an act, but it increasingly becomes clear to her throughout the book that she needs to seek out Potter’s haunts in order to find a semblance of order in her own life. It is in this journey mapping Potter spatially, that she also traverses an internal journey of becoming stronger and finding her own voice. Liberally aided by her talent for art, the comic also makes a statement about the therapeutic purpose that it serves.

Helen’s confrontation with her father/abuser, is somewhat problematic, and might not go down well with a lot of readers. While nothing as straightforward as forgiveness, the scene basically spares the father of from any sort of punishment, or even any great self-revelation, as his brief moment of regret is negated by revolting self-indulgence the next moment. Helen’s reaction, personally, does not come off as strong enough- the way she lets go of her father’s culpability in his crime thwarts the sense of poetic justice which our collective mythology as comic book lovers instills in us. On the other hand, to give Talbot some credit, he endows Helen’s character with an amazing level of maturity for a teenager, and for one who has been through what Helen has been, it is incredible. But what disturbed me personally, perhaps, is that nagging sense of doubt that the paedophilic father might just attack another vulnerable victim- it’s a thought nauseating enough for one keenly involved in such issues to feel angry towards Talbot for.

But what really redeems the resolution is the rather heart-warming way fantasy and reality blend over.  Helen’s story comes to a conclusion as she sits atop Hill Top (Potter’s home) and proceeds to sketch a painting of the surrounding countryside, even as the eponymous “The Tale of One Bad Rat” runs parallel via some lovely artwork.

There is a kind of beauty that blossoms from the darkest of humankind’s experiences. The Tale of One Bad Rat is a product of that philosophy, a powerfully moving and mature tale of survival.