ESSENTIAL DYKES TO WATCH OUT FOR SC NEW PTG

Settle in to this wittily illustrated soap opera (Bechdel calls it 'half op-ed column and half endless serialized Victorian novel') of the lives, loves, and politics of Mo, Lois, Sydney, Sparrow, Ginger, Stuart, Clarice, and the rest of the cast of cult-fav characters. Most of them are lesbians, living in a midsize American city that may or may not be Minneapolis. Bechdel's brilliantly imagined countercultural band of friends-academics, social workers, bookstore clerks-fall in and out of love, negotiate friendships, raise children, switch careers, and cope with aging parents. Bechdel fuses high and low culture-from foreign policy to domestic routine, hot sex to postmodern theory-in a serial graphic narrative 'suitable for humanists of all persuasions.'