Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

desayunoencama just posted that he'd noticed, and been unhappy with, a lack of an organized queer presence at Wiscon, something he had felt and appreciated in previous years. In response, I wrote a bit about one of my panels, and am expanding that a bit here to talk more about the panel itself.

Sunday afternoon, I was on a panel about Alison Bechdel's book Fun Home, which by design and in practice discussed the possible reasons for and effects of the book's unexpected acceptance in mainstream contexts as well as the book as book, in terms of structure, content, stylistic choices, and how we (panelists and audience members) had reacted to it. The discussion went into details like the book as artifact, and what that says about support by the publisher; Bechdel's choice to use limited color; the inclusion of quotes from the Western literary canon; the nonlinear, or maybe spiraling narration; and the ways that Bechdel grounds her personal story in what was going on in the world, and how that connects to what she's done over many years in Dykes to Watch Out For.

It was a very good panel. At the end, the moderator asked each of us what we would like to have happen as a consequence (either causal or sequential) of Fun Home success. I came up with something about more cross-fertilization, I don't remember what the next three people said, and then the last panelist, who came at things from a comics background, actually said that she expected to read more by and about lesbians, which she hadn't previously done because she isn't one. I interrupted and said "We read about straight people."

I shouldn't have to be having that interaction at Wiscon, at a panel about a book by Alison Bechdel.

[footnotes: I'm not naming the person who said that because there were two panelists I didn't know, and I'm not sure which it was. Janet Lafler might, but she's not reachable right now. And yes, I'm bisexual rather than exclusively lesbian.]