I wonder how different the process of creating this book was from, say, the early Dykes to Watch Out For books or even Fun Home?

Throughout the book, there are references to obsolete technology. If I already had it figured out, there’d be no point in doing the book. To me, these books all feel impossible at the outset, which is why I want to do them. Has writing these graphic memoirs gotten easier with practice? Can you talk about how you deal with figuring out how to end a book when you’re telling a true story, but it’s from your own life, and the end of the book is not also the end of your life. It’s lucky that you had this wonderful realization at the end so you had this nice conclusion. But you’re also telling a story from your own life, and you have to have a satisfying ending. The control that you have over it is really masterfully done. Yet, I was really aware, The Secret To Superhuman Strength is an intensely structured book-the timeline of the book, the way you bring people and places back into the story. June Thomas: You have very effectively made your life your subject. This partial transcript has been edited and condensed for clarity. They discussed how she pushes herself to her creative limits, the research rabbit holes she goes down for her books, and why she chose to work with two different drawing styles for her new book. On this week’s episode of Working, June Thomas spoke with cartoonist Alison Bechdel about her newest graphic memoir, The Secret to Superhuman Strength.

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