Unknown heroines!
Empresses, women warriors and inventors – the well known French comic book designer Pénélope Bagieu has published a beautiful book full of reminders for forgotten women. For the French newspaper LE MONDE she wrote and designed – for a whole year – every week a story about LES CULOTTEES, portraying women to be remembered in history.
Women like Wu Zetian, the only female emperor of China; or Agnodike, who studied medicine in secret and became a gynaecologist in ancient Greece; Nzinga, who became Queen of Angola at the age of 16; and there is also a story about the famous singer and dancer Josephine Baker, who adopted several children and who was quite actively engaged in politics.

Fifteen of Bagieu’s women portraits are now published in German: FEARLESS. PORTRAITS OF EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN. A second edition of contemporary women portraits is available in French. Will she continue to tell stories? Yes, she says: There will never be enough stories of women told. Ever. Because we have so much in the past to catch up with. Because for so long we haven’t told stories of women. We are not close to having enough of them. So we have a few more years to go! Just wish we could have a Pénélope Bagieu also in Vienna…

She never found any female role models in comic books – so she draw some on her own. Now Pénélope Bagieu is on the way to be herself a wonderful role model of today.

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