The comic that I had read for this week is Fun Home by Alison Bechdel. I had previous known about this work from the stage musical adaptation of it, but was curious about the original comic (I had no idea it was a comic beforehand). For me, personally, it was hard for me to pin point my exact feelings towards the work. At, to an extent, I think that’s the point. Alison Bechdel is trying to come to terms with her father’s suicide, his repressed sexuality (and the not great stuff that came along with that), and her own coming to terms with her growing sexuality. It’s messy, and deeply personal, and doesn’t try to completely justify the behaviors of her father. Instead the comic calls back to the confessional comics movement, where the comics were built as a cathartic way of examining one’s self.
Fun Home is then more than a recollection of the past, but a way to make sense of it in order to continue forward. A part of what I think makes Fun Home important in comics in general is the raw honesty and a dry humor that is interwoven throughout the narrative. It deals with topics that underground comics dealt with, but now it is more mainstream and so forth reaches a wider audience with more critical acclamation. It’s a reading that gives strength, and also shows how internalized homophobia can hurt a person deeply. The people within Fun Home are tragically human, and I find that to be its most appealing quality.
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