The Indelible Alison Bechdel; Confessions, Comix, and Miscellaneous Dykes to Watch Out For (1998)

The missing link between the strip and the memoirs, for readers who want everything. This 1998 Firebrand paperback gathers childhood drawings, autobiographical stories, collaborations with other cartoonists, strips that never ran in the series and old calendar art. The autobiographical pieces are the reason to look for it: they show Bechdel already turning her pen on herself, with the same deadpan self-scrutiny that Fun Home would later stretch across a whole book. It is a scrapbook rather than a story, so dip in rather than read straight through, and treat it as an extra once you know Mo and her friends.