FUN HOME by Alison Bechdel
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel (creator of the ‘Bechdel Test’) is a memoir set around a young Alison and her relationship with her father, and why he committed suicide while she was in college. She connects to him through literature, and utilizes both classic and unknown novels to help us understand the type of bond that they had. She connects herself to him through their shared queerness as well, although it affects each of them in very different ways, and she builds a melancholy story of childhood and adult life around it. She doesn’t use time linearly, but instead takes us through her memories seemingly as they come, all related piece by piece until we get the full story.
The art is my favorite thing about Fun Home — then again, it’s my favorite thing about most comics. Bechdel does her art traditionally, so you can see the imperfections in her ink lines and the overlap of the watercolors she uses to color, and it’s beautiful. It makes the story seem more real, more human, and that’s exactly what a memoir needs. I love digital art, but there’s something about the way you can see someone’s hand in their work that makes it easier to connect to on a more base level. Bechdel uses a simplified cartoon style for the majority of her drawings, but she suddenly delves into realism when she depicts a picture, and it makes those moments stand out strongly. It’s almost a way to highlight these images, to scream ‘this is real’ and ‘I’m copying something that exists down onto paper’, and it solidifies what we can believe of her. These panels also show off Bechdel’s skills, if the way she captures motion and backgrounds aren’t enough.
A thing that caught my eye about this comic was the constant melancholy or simply lack of expression that every character wears. It helps communicate the repression felt in the Bechdel house, and goes along well with the single shade of blue Bechdel uses for every panel. The most common expression we see is anger, with occasional happiness. I don’t recall ever seeing a sad expression, which is more impactful than if there was, and again, communicates the strange relationship between father and daughter.
I mentioned loving Bechdel’s use of real life novels, and how she uses them to illustrate her relationship to her father. She also uses them as narrative transitions, showing us the novel she or her father are reading and connecting it to a memory, or a story she’d heard about her parents. While art is important in this comic memoir, it’s equally balanced with prose, and even wraps up its entire story into these thick, heavy books with no pictures. It’s a marriage between the two genres, previously seen as diametrically opposed, and it’s a brilliant way to do it. The art communicates to us the tone of the piece, the feeling — the texts reference the thoughts, the themes of the story. They work seamlessly together, and it adds an extra layer to the story, almost like a puzzle. Why did she mention Pride and Prejudice here? Is there something between Lizzie and her father that can be applied to Bechdel and hers? Could there be something Bechdel and her father have that helps us to understand Lizzie and Mr. Bennet even more? It’s a conversation between the two mediums, and it’s very well done.
Fun Home is fantastic, and it makes you think about relationships and bonds in a different light. Its colors and expressions match its tone, and Bechdel effectively weaves a narrative into her memories for us to follow. This comic draws in literature lovers and comic fans, even when the two groups don’t seem to overlap often. I highly recommend it!
