Cartoonist Alison Bechdel Announces New 'Dykes to Watch Out For' Podcast

Alison Bechdel Credit: FIle photo courtesy Elena Seibert

By now, the feathers in Alison Bechdel‘s cap have gotten rather numerous. The Bolton illustrator and former Vermont cartoonist laureate has penned three graphic memoirs, including Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic in 2006, which was later adapted into the 2015 Tony award-winning musical Fun Home. In 2014, she was the recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship. And, of course, she conceived of the eponymous Bechdel Test, which measures the representation of women in film and other fictional works.

Now comes another distinction for the 62-year-old: all-star podcaster.

The former Seven Days cartoonist and Vermont Book Award winner will be producing her “Dykes To Watch Out For” podcast, an Audible version of her comic strip that ran from 1983 to 2008. Dropping on June 1, it’ll feature such recognizable voices as those of Carrie Brownstein (“Portlandia”), Roberta Colindrez (“A League of Their Own”), Roxane Gay (New York Times best-selling author of Bad Feminist: Essays), Jenn Colella (Broadway’s Come from Away), and Jane Lynch (“Glee”) — whom Bechdel collectively described in a Facebook post as “my favorite all-female VO cast of all time.”

The podcast will be scripted by playwright and Pulitzer Prize finalist Madeleine George and directed by Tony Award nominee Leigh Silverman and include original music by Faith Soloway and Bitch. It will feature characters familiar to fans of Bechdel’s strip, including Mo, Lois, Toni and Clarice as they “surf the wave of dyke drama.”

“It’s such a great gift to hear the characters and their world come to life on audio, talking and kvetching and playing softball and going to marches,” Bechdel told The Advocate this week. “Often when I was drawing the comic strip I would wish it could have the extra dimension of a sound track — and now it does.”

To preorder, visit Audible here.