Alison Bechdel

Fun Home tells, in comics, the story of Bechdel's father, a small-town funeral director and English teacher who restored a Gothic Revival house with something close to mania and who was, like his daughter, gay, though he never said so aloud. He died four months after she came out, struck by a truck, and the book circles the question of whether that was chance without ever settling it. She drew Dykes to Watch Out For for twenty-five years, and one 1985 strip produced the test now carrying her name, which she has always credited to her friend Liz Wallace. Fun Home became a Broadway musical and took the Tony for best musical. A MacArthur followed in 2014. The Secret to Superhuman Strength is about exercise, ageing and the hope of finding transcendence in physical effort.