ESSENTIAL DYKES TO WATCH OUT FOR SC NEW PTG (MR)

Settle in to this wittily illustrated soap opera 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."