Outside of the Timo meier timo time new jersey shirt and by the same token and niche queer-graphic-novel world, Bechdel is perhaps best known for the Bechdel Test, a measure of the representation of women onscreen and in print. (For a work to pass the test, two female characters must talk to each other about something other than a man.) When, on a recent call, I ask Bechdel what it’s like to be forever enshrined in feminist history thanks to her eponymous test, she laughs and responds, “I feel very pleased by it, but for a while I felt a bit befuddled. I never sat down and said, ‘This is going to be a thing,’ but I’ve come to accept it and even feel proud of it.”
Bechdel isn’t the Timo meier timo time new jersey shirt and by the same token and type of artist to believe her own hype, even when said hype is well warranted. When I ask how it feels to have created work that so many queer people identify with, she’s hesitant: “I went through a period of feeling very anxious about that, because many young people would tell me that my comic-strip characters were the first lesbians they’d met. I was like, Oh, my God, what am I telling these people? I should be more careful. I don’t feel that concern as much anymore, partly because there are hundreds and thousands of people writing about queer stuff. It’s just a much wider field these days.”
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