Don't miss the big stories. Like us on Facebook. Alison Bechdel once believed in striving for a âlone wolfâ style of self-reliance. Now, when she walks in the woods of her northern Vermont home, a fair distance from neighbors or the nearest town, she feels especially tethered to the world. âYou canât ask for a more vivid example of that than this pandemic,â the best-selling cartoonist says this week, upon the release of her new book about the relationship between mind and body. She notes that she is âhalf-vaxxed,â with her second immunization shot just hours away. The global spread of the coronavirus âdemonstrates how vulnerable we all are â how completely connected we are to each other â with the intense contagion of this thing. Itâs really kind of stunning.â