Alison Bechdel’s groundbreaking comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For is getting an audiobook adaptation, the Advocate reports.
Audible will release the adaptation on June 1. The cast features actors Jane Lynch (Glee), Carrie Brownstein (Portlandia), Roberta Colindrez (Vida), and Jenn Colella (Feed the Beast), along with author Roxane Gay (Bad Feminist).
Bechdel’s comic strip debuted in 1983 and ran in LGBTQ+ newspapers until 2008. It followed a group of lesbian friends living in an unnamed American city. Bechdel is also the author of the graphic memoirs Fun Home, Are You My Mother?, and The Secret to Superhuman Strength. Fun Home was adapted for the Tony Award–winning musical of the same title.
The audio adaptation of Dykes To Watch Out For is written by playwright Madeleine George (The [curious case of the] Watson Intelligence) and directed by Leigh Silverman (the Broadway musical revival Violet). It is scored by Alana Davis, Faith Soloway, and Bitch.
“I am blown away by this Audible Original based off my graphic work, Dykes To Watch Out For,” Bechdel told the Advocate. “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. Often when I was drawing the comic strip I would wish it could have the extra dimension of a soundtrack—and now it does.”
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
