Spawn of Dykes to Watch Out for
Bechdel returns with her lovably P.C. lesbian community, in her fifth collection of stories chronicling the lives and loves of the staff at Madwimmin Bookshop. Bookstore staff includes "sex-positive" Lois; bookstore owner Jezanna; wheelchair-bound Thea; and Mo, political grouch in residence. Mo's lover, Harriet, wants to break up and Mo is not taking it well. Yuppie lesbians Toni and Clarice have decided to have a child by artificial insemination. Bechdel's story takes us through their parenting adventure in amusing sequences dealing with frozen-sperm deliveries, breaking the news to parents (or, in Toni's case, pretending there's a father) and the shock of baby-support groups--all subtly illuminating the problems that same-sex couples must face to have children. Bechdel handles Toni's labor and birth (a first for a syndicated comic strip?) with tasteful detail, humor and just the right amount of sentiment. Her black-and-white drawings are charming, carefully conceived and briskly comic.Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.