![alison bechdel](https://queerty-prodweb.s3.amazonaws.com/wp/docs-null/2012/09/alison-bechdel1-360x242.jpg)
I’m immensely grateful that I have something I like to do so much and that I get to do it and that I get paid to do it. But I also feel – and I have to figure out a way to talk about this without sounding really incredibly whiny and obnoxious, and some other adjective that my menopausal brain is not accessing—but I feel like when I look around at my work life, I’m like at the top of my field and I find this a really alarming and disconcerting thing. Because I feel like, “How did this happen?” I mean, I’m happy. I’m happy it happened, but I don’t feel like. . . It hasn’t been like . . . I haven’t figured this all out.B
I hope I’m not at the top of my game, but I do feel like, you know, in terms of the field of graphic novels and cartooning I am perceived as this big success. And I am a big success, but I feel like an utter fraud. I mean, I’m okay. I do good work. I know I do good work. But I haven’t quite . . . I feel like . . . My new challenge is to grow into my reputation, to like really inhabit my potential as much as I can. I want to do really good work. I feel like I have maybe 10, maybe 15 years to really do some substantive work, and I really hope I can rise to that challenge.
—Award-winning lesbian cartoonist Alison Bechdel (Dykes to Watch Out For, Fun Home, Are You My Mother?) discusses turning 50 (today), on Jezebel. Happy birthday, Alison!
Photo: Matt Valentine
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Roxanne
Alison Bechdel was born in 1962. She’s 52! Not 50. Which you would have realized if you’d actually read the Jezebel article you stole this from.
Roxanne
Ah crap that was a terrible typo to make when snarking. 1950 not 1952. *ahem*
Aidan8
@Roxanne: So if she was born in 1962 and this is 2012, how does she become 52 now?