jeff eaton

Fun Home is a polished autobiographical piece that follows a daughter's memories of her obsessive, little-understood father. Alison Bechdel is also behind the long-running Dykes to Watch Out For, and sexual identity is a big theme in this story.

It's cool to see graphic novels maturing; the story itself would feel at home in any Gen-X autobiography on the shelf at Borders. After finishing it, though, I'd be hard pressed to imagine it in any other medium. The visual presentation gives it a lot of intensity, and Bechdel's writing voice is articulate and wry. She uses the combination of images and text as a real strength rather than twisting everything into an indie-film storyboard; words and images play against each other, with idle comments by her faceless narrator telling one story while the pen-and-ink illustrations tell another.

It's a bit of a depressing read, given the heavy themes. But it's also an example of the graphic novel at its best. I'll probably keep it on my 'must read' list for anyone wanting to dig into the genre.