Alison Bechdel spoke openly about her work as a cartoonist and memoirist Thursday night in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union.

Most of her cartoons revolve around sexual identity and gender. Bechdel came out as lesbian at the age of 19. Her most famous cartoon work is “Dykes To Watch Out For,” which she stopped making in 2008.

“Telling stories visually is a separate category from writing and drawing,” Bechdel said.

Bechdel was rejected from many art institutions when she applied to them in her senior year of college. Her rejections led her to do what she really wanted to do, which was tell visual stories.

Not only has she published a long running comic strip, she is also the author of two memoirs entitled “Are You My Mother” and “Fun Home.” “Are You My Mother” is a memoir about her mother and is about writing and her relationship with her mother through writing. “Fun Home” is about her father, but features a theme of reading rather than writing.

The Bechdel test is a test for films that includes three components. First, it has to have at least two women in it. Second, the women have to talk to each other. Third, the women have to talk about something other than a man.

The Bechdel test became well known and popular in the early 2010s. The test was created by Liz Wallace, as well as Alison Bechdel and defined as “the standard by which feminist critics judge television, movies, books and other media”.

“Cartoons don’t get scrutinized the way fine art or literature do,” Bechdel said.

This form of creative expression made her feel free and as though she could tell an honest story. Bechdel’s comic strip became a place where homosexuality did not have to be explained.

Bechdel’s “Fun Home” is now being adapted into a Broadway musical. The memoir describes her complicated relationship with her father and the struggles that come along with that. “Fun Home” has sold about 250,000 copies and is now being taught in classrooms.