The opening scene of Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, cartoonist Alison Bechdel's best-selling graphic memoir, shows her as a young child, playing airplane, precariously balanced on her father's feet. These were her rare moments of joy and physical contact with him, a man who otherwise kept his distance, tormented by his secrets. That little girl, who went on to become a lesbian icon in the world of comics, ultimately landed on her feet. Her comic strips started with the Dykes to Watch Out For series, which she published in small-circulation LGBTQ+ media outlets for years, and which was later adapted into an audio series for a streaming platform. Her books, which were first released in the United States, have now been translated and sold across Europe. Since 2024, she has taught comics at the prestigious Yale University in Connecticut. Finally, as a crowning achievement, Switzerland's Cartoonmuseum Basel is hosting an extensive retrospective of her work through October 26.

Bechdel, 65, has moved out of the margins. "Here, I am treated as a cartoonist, and not a lesbian cartoonist," she said proudly when we met her in Basel in early July. She wasn't at all bitter about this recognition being given to her in Europe: Given how things are going in the US, who would want to remain confined to a ghetto? "The political situation has just been so chaotic," she said. "I saw our country on this positive trajectory for so long. In terms of social change and justice. And LGBTQ rights were a part of that. I felt like we were making progress. Now it seems like maybe we're going backward."

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