Woolf shows up in the first chapter of Alison Bechdel's inventive graphic memoir "Are You My Mother?", strolling with her dog through a double-page spread depicting Tavistock Square in Bloomsbury ...

As a result, “Are You My Mother?” feels like both a tribute and a true portrait. As for “A Comic Drama,” the subtitle: Well, yes, this could be called a comedy in the classic sense.

That volume ­enjoyed huge advan­tages over its sequel, Are You My ­Mother? (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt ... her parents' loveless marriage, and the drama of her own lesbian ­coming-of-age.

If you haven’t heard of the multi-prize winning ... a perfectly imagined Bloomsbury thinking about writing about her own mother. For this deceptively light book is in fact a serious excursion ...