Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog

Here Alison Bechdel walks us through the creative process she used to create her graphic novel, Fun Home. It’s particularly interesting to see the various stages of layering Alison’s drawings are created with.

(link via Mike Lynch)

Don’t let this kinda lame title graphic fool you — Nerve’s comics issue is actually loaded with some great stuff (and hardly any men in tights). In addition to new work from Paul Pope, Sophie Crumb, Andi Watson, and more, there are also interviews with Evan Dorkin, Roz Chast, Peter Bagge, and Alison Bechdel, and a slew of essays and articles — including a sex advice column from comic store clerks (some of those superhero books make for mighty fine anatomy lessons, I’m sure!).

“If David Sedaris could draw, and if Bleak House had been a little funnier, you’d have Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home.”

— Amy Bloom, author of A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You

Do yourself a huge favour: Read Alison Bechdel’s superb comic book biography “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (link goes to Amazon.com).

I just finished it, and it is entirely deserving of the accolades it has been receiving. I kept wanting to read the whole book in one uninterrupted sitting, but every page is so wonderfully rich in both story and artwork, that I found myself putting it down after only a few pages and nearly feeling like I needed to catch my breath. And no, not because I’m gay and she’s gay, but because with just a few deceptively simple panels and an economy of line and art, Bechdel achieves an intensity in her storytelling where most novelists would need half a chapter.

There is a lot more on the book here, including excerpts and an audio interview, as well as far more well-written praise than I’m capable of.

Alison even has a short video of herself explaining her drawing process on her MySpace page which I can’t directly paste here because, you know… uh… MySpace.

By the way, if Alison’s name sounds familiar, you may know her from her popular and long-running weekly strip “Dykes To Watch Out For” which appears in gay weeklies across North America.