Talk:Fun Home/Archive 1

This archive contains discussions from August 2006 through August 2007.

Page created
I just created this page. Please help expand it. There is a ton of related info on the author's blog. Here is a link [] to a list of reviews of the book. This could be used to properly reference the article. --345Kai 23:19, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

The author's blog is not a reliable source.
Check out Wikipedia policies WP:V, WP:NN, WP:OR and others. Mattisse 00:16, 6 August 2006 (UTC)


 * It does have links to reviews that people may or may not find reliable. What's wrong with that on the talk page??--345Kai 06:21, 6 August 2006 (UTC)


 * It seems like, in this case, Ms. Bachdel's blog would be an acceptable source of information; particularly information pertaining to the research/process of creating her book. I think she is an acceptable authority on how her own book came into fruition--I think verification problems may arise if Ms. Bechdel, for instance, wrote a review about Fun Home on her blog and we quoted it here. Perhaps I just had a different interpretation of the guidelines. I could be wrong.--Erin1983 03:31, 14 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Mattisse's comment was put up when the page had been put on AfD for not establishing notability. You're right that Bechdel's blog is an acceptable background source on Bechdel — but it wasn't sufficient to establish the notability of Fun Home for someone who hadn't heard of it.  The New York Times citations took care of that concern, though. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 13:27, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

factual verification
If someone could point to what statements need factual verification, that would be great. The article doens't contain any claims that can't be easily verified by anyone taking a glance at the book.--345Kai 06:42, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

If you say the book must be seen to verify then it makes this article sound like an advertisement
You need links to verifiable sources, so anyone reading your article can check for themselves without getting the book. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a book review service. Check out Wikipedia's policies on verifying information given to you above. Also, check out WP:OR. Mattisse 12:34, 6 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Ok, verifiable sources, but for what? What factual statements in the article need to be referenced, according to your opinion?  Please list some.  Just for comparison, the first article on a graphic novel you find on the list of featured articles The Adventures of Tintin,  explains who and what the story is about without references.  How am I going to verify the truthfulness of a statement such as "The hero of the series is a young reporter and traveller named Tintin" without looking up the books? --345Kai 03:44, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure, but I think that what Mattisse wanted was verifiable sources for the notability of the book, not the plot and thematic summary. I asked him on his talk page whether the review links I provided were sufficient, and he replied at my talk page saying they were good. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:54, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

"very nice, and accurate to boot."
Of possible interest to readers of this page: Alison Bechdel noted the creation of this page on her blog. Aside from a quibble with the UK spelling "focussing", she liked it. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 00:54, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


 * or at least an early version of it...--24.82.175.172 20:59, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Time and Entertainment Weekly
If anyone has (or wants to pick up) a copy of the Time and Entertainment Weekly magazines that have put Fun Home in their "best of 2006" lists, it would be great to add them to the "Best of 2006" section. (The lists don't seem to be on either magazine's website.) —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 07:01, 18 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Never mind — Time is online now, and I suppose that EW will be soon. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 18:48, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Bruce Bechdel was not "closeted gay man"
Although Alison's character refers to her father as a "closeted fag" at one point, and Bechdel describes her father as a "sissy", in no part of the book does he label himself with a sexual identity. Bruce Bechdel was a nelly boy, military man, strong husband, father of children, obsessive compulsive community icon, unflinching mortician, intellectual country squire who liked sex with teenage boys. He was not bisexual, gay, or straight--if anything, Bruce Bechdel should and can only be called Queer. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.71.45.235 (talk) 19:49, 26 April 2007 (UTC).

GA review
Okay, my comments: Nothing major other than the loss of four references. I'll put the article on hold to give time to provide alternative references. The Rambling Man 14:41, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
 * References [1], [2] and [3] are subscription only for the New York Times and, as such, are inappropriate for external links (see WP:EL, what not to link to, number 6). Different references should be sought.
 * Reference [13] is a dead link.
 * Acclaim and awards section, first paragraph has lots of very short sentences, look to flow them to improve the prose. Also, avoid the single-sentence paragraphs as well.
 * Why have four more reviews in external links? If they're worth it they should be used as citations in the main body.


 * Thanks for taking the time to review the article. I'll work on the prose in the "acclaim and awards" section, and fix the problematic links (which I think were put in to establish notability early in the article's life, before all the awards and "best of 2006" lists).  However, I'm a bit uncertain about the applicability of the "Links normally to be avoided" in the case of the New York Times references.  I suppose that a different review could be used in the intro, but a book being on the New York Times bestseller list is noteworthy, and I'm not aware of a free source which could support the sentence that it was on the NYT bestseller list for two weeks.  Anyone have any ideas about that? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 17:13, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
 * No problems for the review. I still think that since those references are subscription only, they cannot be used and you either need to find a suitable "free" replacement or rewrite the text accordingly.  Sorry about that... The Rambling Man 17:17, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, perhaps I'm not making it clear enough! I mean that any references (i.e. originally 1, 2 and 3 from the NYT) that require subscription, free or not, are really unsuitable for citation purposes.  When I click on the link I don't get a secondary source, I get a "Register now" page.  Unfortunately this is inappropriate.  The Rambling Man 17:44, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry I missed your earlier comment — I was editing the page and didn't see that the comment here. I'm a bit confused about the current state of WP:EL — I had thought that sites requiring free registration were OK, as long as the content was significant to the article and couldn't be obtained any other way.  Perhaps WP:EL has changed recently and I missed it.  I've asked for clarification at the external links talk page. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 18:18, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Editors at WT:EL have now replied, saying that WP:EL doesn't apply to links used as citations; in fact, it says "The subject of this guideline is external links that are not citations of article sources" (emphasis added). So I think I'll restore the original New York Times quote to the intro, since I think it illustrates the exceptional nature of Fun Home better than the Time quote does. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 03:08, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, I think the discussion was worthwhile. I'll recheck and promote. The Rambling Man 06:49, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Rambling Man! —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 16:56, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
 * You're very welcome. The Rambling Man 16:57, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I find it strange that the father is referred to as "Bruce" in this article. It seems unencyclopedic. He is also not called by his first name in the book itself. I recommend reformulation. Same applies to the use of "Alison".--345Kai 06:41, 4 August 2007 (UTC)


 * It's a good point. I assume the use of first names is to distinguish the father from the daughter (who would both normally be referred to as "Bechdel", which would be confusing), but I agree that it seems a bit odd.  (If this were fiction, it would be less problematic, but it isn't.)  I'll see if I can recast those sentences. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 03:49, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

New section on artistic process
I've added a new section, on the process Bechdel used to create the book. I'm unsure about the best title for it, though; right now the article uses "Creation", but it could just as easily be "Artistic process" or "Technique" or something. Does anyone have any thoughts on the best name for the section? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:25, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Translations
It just occurred to me that the article should probably mention what languages Fun Home has been translated into. I know that it's been published in French and even serialized in the newspaper Libération (see here), but I'm not sure where else to look for information on what other languages it's been translated into. Anyone got any ideas? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:34, 7 August 2007 (UTC)


 * One way to gather translation info might be through Amazon.com, which I know has Japan- and Germany-based stores; there may be others as well.--Galliaz 15:14, 8 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I checked there — no joy. For now, I've decided that the attention Fun Home received in France merits a section of its own.  (Later I'll add something about the academic conferences in Paris and Tours mentioned here and published here; I'm slightly confused about the exact relationship between the Paris and Tours conferences, but I'll try to figure it out.) —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 18:06, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Possible image for "artistic process" section
The interview in The Comics Journal has a photograph of Alison Bechdel dressed as her father, alongside the panel from the book for which this photograph was taken. I'd like to get this scanned for inclusion in the artistic process section of the article, because I think that in the words of Non-free content criteria #8, it would "significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding." However, I'm concerned that some anti-fair use crusaders might object that two panels from the book is excessive. I don't have a scanner myself, so getting the image scanned would involve some effort, which I'd prefer not to be in vain. Does anyone know whether the use of such an image would be acceptable or not? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 18:00, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Citation formats?
I've used both Cite journal and Citation in the article. I'm not sure whether that inconsistency matters; if it does, I'm not sure which to choose. Each has a parameter the other lacks: Cite journal has a field for the journal's ISSN, which Citation lacks (I asked about it at Template talk:Citation but got no response), and Citation has the ability to distinguish date of authorship from date of publication, which is useful for the GRAAT papers (which were presented in January 2007, published in March 2007). Does anyone have any feelings about this one way or the other? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 06:38, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Personally I think you should use whichever template gives you what you need. Alternatively you can skip the templates altogether and write out the reference manually, I've seen that done a lot as well.  As long as the reference has all the essential elements, meets the manual of style and thus looks okay, I don't see a problem mixing and matching.  The Rambling Man 15:37, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Cool. Thanks. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 15:39, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Eisners in lead
Is it misleading or inaccurate to say in the lead that Fun Home was nominated for three Eisners? Technically, the book was nominated for two, and Bechdel was nominated for one, but of course the latter was due to Fun Home. I didn't want to bog the lead down with too many details (which are given in the "Awards" section), but I thought it was worth mentioning that Fun Home did win an Eisner. Merely saying that it was nominated could be read as saying that it didn't win any. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 15:26, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

removal from library
IMHO, the removal from public library is not important enough to be mentioned in the lead. It was a very minor event. Someone complained about the book, the library noticed they didn't have a policy, the library made a policy, the library put the book back. Seems to me nothing out of the ordinary happened. I know that Bechdel herself made a big fuss over it, but that's beside the point. It's not like there was a nationwide campaign to ban the book, or something. --24.86.252.26 05:35, 20 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Previously, the lead didn't mention the library incident, but another editor at the FAC thought that it should, so I added it. I don't really feel strongly either way, but I tend to trust the judgment of the editors who review featured articles. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 06:12, 20 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, the editors who review featured article candidates don't necessarily know the subject matter as well as some of us. In fact, I seem to disagree with pretty much everything that that particular editor has to say. (Sorry, I'm the dude who created this article last year, but was too lazy to sign in.)  I actually feel quite strongly about this.  Mentioning this ill-informed person in Missouri in the same paragraph as the New York Times critic gives too much weight to the former.  In the end, the whole thing turned out to be somewhat of a tempest in a tea pot, I think.  The only mention in a national newspaper is your reference number 4, and in that instance it is only one example among many.  It was never a national news story in its own right. --345Kai 06:53, 20 August 2007 (UTC)


 * BTW, congratulations on the hard work you've put in, Josiah. The article is looking really good--345Kai 07:03, 20 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks — it's been a labor of love. I wonder if condensing the mention of the library incident would help.  (By the way, just because I've been obsessively editing this for a couple of weeks doesn't mean you have to ask my permission to edit!  I don't own the article!) —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 15:31, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I've tweaked it slightly to remove the word "pornography". I'm not opposed to a complete removal, but I reckon we should get BillDeanCarter to defend his opinion that the incident merits inclusion in the lead. Incidentally, there was a bit more national/mainstream coverage of the incident than looking at the sources currently used in the article might indicate; the AP story was apparently picked up by a number of sources; I used the IHT one because it was the most high-profile, but it did make the national scene, sort of. Publishers Weekly also covered the incident. (I hadn't used that reference because it didn't really add anything that the local stories didn't have.) It was also covered in national publications for librarians, like Library Journal (and its school edition, School Library Journal) and on the American Library Association's website; anti-censorship organizations like the National Coalition Against Censorship and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund also chimed in. I'm not claiming that these sources necessarily justify mentioning the incident in the article's lead, but if you think they'd be useful in the section on the challenge we can add them. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 16:15, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * 345Kai: It doesn't matter if the incident was a "tempest in a teapot" or not. If the incident is properly described in the lead then people will be able to determine that yes it was a minor incident but a hard fought one. The whole point of this article is to get into detail like that, to be comprehensive. The lede should summarize the main points of the article.-BillDeanCarter 00:30, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I've added sentences about the artwork and the French attention, per Bill's suggestion at User talk:Josiah Rowe. Perhaps when the book banning attempt is mentioned along with other aspects the mention won't seem so disproportionate. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:33, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

structure
I would put promote the subsection on the artwork and artistic process to its own section. It doesn't fit in the section on reception and publication history.--345Kai 07:07, 20 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree that "publication history" was a poor fit. Again, this came from one of the FAC editors, who thought that the artwork section was too short to stand on its own.  I've subdivided the artwork and artistic process sections, which may help the perceived imbalance. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 15:25, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I think "publication history" should be able the publication of the novel, so about the library removal attempt, the attention in France, etc. I would ask User:Awadewit what she thinks of this article's layout. She's done a few FAs about novels.-BillDeanCarter 00:32, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I've dropped her a line, but her user talk page says she's on vacation now, so it may be a while before she replies. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:42, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Order of paragraphs in lead
I'm wondering whether it would be an improvement to switch the second and third paragraphs in the lead, so that the reception in France and Missouri comes before the awards and acclaim. On the one hand, that's the order in the article, and it might be stronger to end on the awards than on the attempted book-banning. On the other hand, it might be odd to talk about the way it was received in France before mentioning its general critical reception. Anyone have any thoughts about this? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 06:06, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Suggestions
This is a very good article - it is well-written and engages the reader (I am now going to check out the book from the library). However, I do think that the article could benefit from a slight reorganization and some concentrated efforts to connect everything together. Here are my suggestions (take 'em or leave 'em):


 * The first and third paragraphs of the lead feel a little choppy. The sentences move from one topic to another without a real connection. Could you perhaps try to tie them together more?


 * I find the infobox unsightly. I don't think it adds anything to the article since you mention all of the material in it in the article.


 * In the "Plot and thematic summary" section, I would start with a simple description of the book and then offer the detailed analysis. For readers unfamiliar with the book, it might be a bit jarring to jump right into something like "non-linear and recursive". The reader needs to be familiar with the book before embarking on a thematic analysis. In fact, I would separate this off into an "Overview" section, since memoirs don't really have plots in the traditional sense.


 * Saying that the book draws allusions from the "visual arts" is a bit broad - at least give an example, even if you are not going to launch into a full-scale analysis at that point.


 * You must have studied literature at some point - I see the word "lens". :) This word might not be the best kind of diction for an encyclopedia, as its meaning in literary studies has not become very common.


 * I think that perhaps you could spend more time describing the genre of the memoir and its relationship to fiction. To what extent is Bechdel attempting to tell the "truth" and to what extent is she telling a "story"? (You can only do this if some reliable sources do, obviously.)


 * Linking abstract concepts inside quotations is not generally a good idea, as such things can easily mean different things to different people. Let the quote speak for itself.


 * I generally think "Allusions" sections are a poor idea. Most allusions are part of a larger theme or a smaller motif and are usually better presented when that theme is presented. It makes the article more coherent. I wonder if placing this material under a "Themes" section that is subdivided into smaller subsections (such as "Sexuality", "Suicide of father", etc.) might work out better. Right now the "Allusions" section is sort of a list. (I have tried to do this myself in Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman.)


 * Have you thought about combining references, so there aren't three and four in a row? It would make the article easier to read.


 * I wonder about cutting some of the material from the "Reception" section. There is almost as much on reception as on the book itself, which seems a bit off kilter. I might mention the academic conference in passing, but I would not, for example, describe the papers. Those are pretty ephemeral. I would also condense the story of the one library who tried to censor it - it is just one library, after all.


 * The beginning of the "Reviews" section is a bit listy (so-and-so said this, another person said this, yet another said this...). Might you find a way to make that paragraph cohere a bit more?

A very interesting article. Let me know if you have any further questions. I'm sorry that it took me so long to get around to reviewing it. Awadewit | talk  03:41, 25 August 2007 (UTC)