In her classic graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (the book which, more than any other, introduced the graphic novel into the literary canon), Alison Bechdel uses numerous literary references (Proust, Henry James, Greek mythology) and allusions when describing her upbringing and members of her family.

As Bechdel explains in the book, this was not a tactic for distancing or adding importance to mundane matters. Viewing her life through an artistic framework was just what came naturally:

I employ these allusions to James and Fitzgerald not only as descriptive devices, but because my parents are the most real to me in fictional terms…