Part of Alison Bechdel’s classic series of lesbian-themed comics/graphic novels, this volume highlights characters Toni and Clarice’s journey to parenthood. Published in 1993, 10 years after the start of the series, the book won a Lambda Literary Award the next year. Despite the story’s age, however, Toni and Clarice’s journey still feels relevant, as they experience multiple rounds of insemination, cryotank deliveries, pregnancy tests, telling their respective conservative parents that they’re having a child, buying a family-friendly car, sex during pregnancy, not-quite-inclusive birth classes, and the support (with occasional skepticism) of their queer community. Bechdel delves with perception and wry humor into topics like Clarice’s hesitation about her place as a nongenetic, nongestational mom, the strains of balancing work and family life, and the worries of bringing a child into an imperfect world.
Toni and Clarice’s parenting story technically started in the very first Dykes to Watch Out For when Clarice mentioned they were thinking about having a child, and it continued in subsequent volumes as son Raffi grew. Spawn of DTWOF, however, captured the key early period up through Raffi’s birth—and its name and cover were a definitive reminder that we’re here, we’re queer, and we’re starting families.
In the introduction to Bechdel’s omnibus collection of DTWOF comics, The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, which includes strips from Spawn of DTWOF, she notes that she drew the comics in part for herself, because “it was so comforting to see my queer life reflected back at me”—but she also wonders whether her comics have shown that lesbian/queer life is essentially the same or essentially different as that of everyone else. The answer is likely a little of each, but in giving us a mirror to see both our similarities and our differences, she has done all of us, parents and otherwise, a great service.
