Dykes and sundry other carbon-based life-forms to watch out for

Change is afoot as the best-selling Dykes to Watch Out For series moves to Alyson. Alison Bechdel continues to illuminate the way we live through the comic strip serial that has become a national treasure. In the tenth book in the series, Mo, the curmudgeonly women’s bookstore clerk, blithely rants about Dr. Laura, Donald Rumsfeld, gay Enron execs, and the pernicious effects of Frogger, while her cozy counterculture community is shifting beneath her feet. Her job is in jeopardy as Madwimmin Books’s customer base defects to the chains. Her ex, Clarice, is displaying symptoms of soccer mom-itis. Her best friend, Lois, has announced her new name is Louis. And her old pal Sparrow considers whether having a baby with her boyfriend will compromise her identity as a radical lesbian feminist. Meanwhile, Toni doesn’t know what do when Clarice’s George W. Bush-induced depression lasts long after the inauguration and, in the wake of 9-11, her friends square off on questions of idealism, violence, compassion, patriotism, and dissent. As they hash out their ideological differences, a black-and-white world takes on surprisingly variegated shades of gray.