History ComicBook / FunHome

* AdaptationExpansion: Alison's family gets more screen-time, mainly her brothers and mother, so that we see more CharacterDevelopment. We also get more screentime with Joan, who serves as an AudienceSurrogate when Alison receives the phone call and learns about her father having affairs.

* WrongAssumption: When Alison comes out of the closet, she considers herself some sort of dramatic heroine. When her mother reveals that her father is also gay and closeted, she realizes she's actually only the comic relief in her father's tragedy.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
** InUniverse. Alison and her girlfriend were fond of doing this to classic childhood literature. "God, [[Franchise/WinnieThePooh Christopher Robin]] was a total imperialist!"
** Also of her father. She admits freely that suicide is only her interpretation of his death, and she can never know for sure whether it is correct (the truck driver who hit him said that Bruce had made it to the side of the road, but then suddenly jumped backward "as if he saw a snake"). When telling of things he did, she offers several different versions of what could have been the motivations behind them.
** She also admits that she may be oversimplifying things by automatically defining him as 'gay', rather than bi- or anything else in-between, for the sake of maintaining a sense of symmetry with her own life.
%%* AnachronicOrder
* AudienceSurrogate: Alison's first girlfriend Joan when she sees the Bechdel family home for the first time. "You described it, but I had ''no'' idea."
* TheBeard: It's never stated explicitly, but Bruce is hinted to have married Helen for this reason, though the follow-up ''Are You My Mother'' does briefly acknowledge he could have been bisexual.
* BlackComedy: The Bechdel kids playing in the coffins in the family funeral home, and the whole song "Come to the Fun Home," which is a fake commerical with really dark lyrics.

* PlotTriggeringAffair: Much of Helen's anguish is dealing with Bruce's numerous affairs. It's no picnic for Alison, either, once she finds out, which spurs her own exploration of the family and its issues.

* YourCheatingHeart: Much of Helen's anguish is dealing with Bruce's numerous affairs. It's no picnic for Alison, either, once she finds out.

* AdaptationExpansion: Alison's family gets more screen-time, mainly her brothers and mother, so that we see more CharacterDevelopment.

** Also of her father. She admits freely that suicide is only her interpretation of his death, and she can never know for sure whether it is correct (the truck driver who hit him said that Bruce had made it to the side of the road, but then suddenly jumped backwards "as if he saw a snake"). When telling of things he did, she offers several different versions of what could have been the motivations behind them.

''Fun Home'' is a 2006 comic memoir by Alison Bechdel, creator of ''ComicStrip/DykesToWatchOutFor''. The story focuses on her growing up in rural Pennsylvania, living under her oppressive father, Bruce, a high-school teacher and funeral home director. It also focuses on his history, how he came to be, and his lifelong project of restoring a dilapidated Victorian-era mansion. As she asserts her independence and comes to accept her orientation as a lesbian, she discovers that her father is gay and closeted. Soon after Alison comes out, he is hit by a truck, which she believes to have been suicide.

* NoPeriodsPeriod: Averted; Alison gets her first period at 13, but doesn't tell anyone for several months. She also notes a fair amount of distaste for the experience, since her first few cycles look like "a slight, brown secretion".[[note]]This is often the case with a girl's first periods, and even later in life the blood from menstruation is often dark red or brownish-red, not the vivid color of blood from a cut or wound[[/note]]

The book took seven years to make. The art was painstakingly reconstructed from family photographs, alongside the panels Alison herself posed for. Upon its release, ''Fun Home'' was well received critically, and is held up as an exemplary work of both its medium and its genre.

* WrongGenreSavvy: When Alison comes out of the closet, she considers herself some sort of dramatic heroine. When her mother reveals that her father is also gay and closeted, she realizes she's actually only the comic relief in her father's tragedy.

-->--'''Welcome to Our House on Maple Avenue'''

* {{Foil}}: Bruce and Alison, especially in the musical. Both grew up in the same small town, both turned out to be gay. Alison handled it considerably better than Bruce did, at least partially due to going to college in a time period that was rather more accepting of the LGBT community. Consequentially, Alison grows up to be a happy, well-adjusted, openly gay adult, while her father remains closeted his entire life, carries out several affairs in his marriage, and kills himself. To drive the point home in the musical, the two sing many of the same lyrics, with different contexts and meanings.

* ImagineSpot: Alison has a brief imaginary outburst at her father's funeral of yelling at the minister. The next panel cuts back to reality, where she is quiet and polite.

%% ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Add context to the entries before uncommenting them.

* DarkReprise: Helen Bechdel's "Days and Days" in the musical is a dark reprisal of "Welcome to Our House in Maple Avenue."

** {{In-universe}}. Alison and her girlfriend were fond of doing this to classic childhood literature. "God, [[Franchise/WinnieThePooh Christopher Robin]] was a total imperialist!"

** Demonstrated {{in-universe}} during Alison's literature class.

** Bruce was also not the nicest parents, tearing up library books, yelling at his children for normal childlike behavior, micromanaging Alison's dress style because she's the only girl in the family,

** For Alison, the fear that she may have caused her father's "suicide," if it was a suicide, because she was willing to come out of the closet when he wasn't. In the comic she wonders what it might have been like if he ''has'' come out and succumbed to the [=AIDs=] epidemic, making his death more painful.

* TurnOutLikeHisFather: Bechdel spends much of the book looking back on her childhood with a new perspective after she learns her dad is gay.

* IWantSong: In the musical, "Welcome to Our House on Maple Avenue" is a "He [Bruce] wants" song. Then a more subtle straight example in "Ring of Keys," when young Alison, while having trouble articulating it, realizes she wants to dress similarly to the butch delivery woman.

** {{In-universe}}. Alison and her girlfriend were fond of doing this to classic childhood literature. "God, [[WinnieThePooh Christopher Robin]] was a total imperialist!"

* TakeThat: ''A flair for the dramatic'' While not a song, has Allison calling out her dad to Joan after receiving a reply to her coming out letter believing that he doesn't know anything about what she's going through. Except it's before she finds out that her Dad [[spoiler: is gay]].