''Les Culottées'' is a blog BD (French

webcomic Webcomics (also known as online comics or Internet comics) are comics published on a website or mobile app. While many are published exclusively on the web, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or comic books. Webcomics can be co ...

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

format) written by

Pénélope Bagieu Pénélope Bagieu (; born 22 January 1982, Paris) is a French illustrator and comic designer. She is best known for her blog BDs (French webcomics in blog format) '' My Quite Fascinating Life'' and '' Les Culottées.'' ''Les Culottées'' was comp ...

in 2016. Published on the website of ''

Le Monde ''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...

'', Bagieu uses ''Les Culottées'' to tell short biographical stories about women. Each comic features a woman from the past or present with an unusual or inspiring story. Bagieu produced one comic a week from January to October 2016, and eventually released the comics in book form. The stories were split into two print publications in France with the subtitle ''Des Femmes Qui ne Font Que ce Qu’elles Veulent'' (Women Who Do as They Please). Each one contained fifteen short stories. The work was released In English as one volume with the title ''Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World''. The English version has only 29 stories instead of the original 30, as "Phoolan Devi, the Indian Queen of Bandits" was removed because it included the rape of a ten-year-old girl by her husband. Translated into 11 languages, ''Brazen'' was positively received and received an Eisner Award in 2019. In 2020 it was adapted as an

animated series An animated series is a set of animated works with a common series title, usually related to one another. These episodes should typically share the same main characters, some different secondary characters and a basic theme. Series can have either ...

of 30 episodes for

France Télévisions France Télévisions (; stylized since 2018 as ) is the French national public television broadcaster. It is a state-owned company formed from the integration of the public television channels France 2 (formerly Antenne 2) and France 3 (former ...

Content

Pénélope Bagieu's ''Les Culottées'' is presented as a series of vignettes of historical women of various time periods and nationalities. Many of the women Bagieu has covered in this series are frequently overlooked by historians, though she has also depicted several well-celebrated women. Some of the women featured in ''Les Culottées'' include

Joséphine Baker Josephine Baker (born Freda Josephine McDonald; naturalised French Joséphine Baker; 3 June 1906 – 12 April 1975) was an American-born French dancer, singer and actress. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted Fran ...

Tove Jansson Tove Marika Jansson (; 9 August 1914 – 27 June 2001) was a Swedish-speaking population of Finland, Swedish-speaking Finnish author, novelist, painter, illustrator and comic strip author. Brought up by artistic parents, Jansson studied art from ...

, Clementine Delait, Margaret Hamilton, Josephina Van Gorkum, Nzinga, and

Frances Glessner Lee Frances Glessner Lee (March 25, 1878 – January 27, 1962) was an American forensic scientist. She was influential in developing the science of forensics in the United States. To this end, she created the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained De ...

. The storylines presented in ''Les Culottées'' are generally somewhat humorous, but Bagieu never focuses too much on comedy, nor does she present the historical information too densely, creating a balance. The stories do tend to be rather short, however, in part due to the lack of sources available about the subjects of the vignettes.

Development

Bagieu had planned to create a blog BD focused on thirty "audacious women" who decide to take charge of their own destiny for a long time, to be published on the official website of ''

''. When she proposed the project to ''Le Monde'' in 2013, the staff was very enthusiastic. When they asked Bagieu if she would really limit the project to thirty stories, Bagieu strengthened her resolve to put real work in the webcomic. Its launch was initially scheduled to coincide with the

Angoulême International Comics Festival The Angoulême International Comics Festival (french: Festival international de la bande dessinée d'Angoulême) is the second largest comics festival in Europe after the Lucca Comics & Games in Italy, and the third biggest in the world after Lu ...

at the end of January 2016, but ''Le Monde'' decided to advance the launch of ''Les Culottées'' by three weeks as a response to the public outcry over the all-male

Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême The Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême is a lifetime achievement award given annually during the Angoulême International Comics Festival to a comics author. Although not a monetary award, it is considered the most prestigious award in Franco-Be ...

nominations. Bagieu created ''Les Culottées'' so that organizations like Angoulême will "stop being able to pretend to believe that the women who have marked the history simply do not exist," though noting that "there are unfortunately few women in the history of comics ... If you go to the Louvre, you will find quite few female artists." A print volume of ''Les Culottées'' featuring fifteen vignettes was released in September 2016, while a second such book was released in January 2017. The second publication initially marked the end of the project. The French version had the subtitle ''Des Femmes Qui ne Font Que ce Qu’elles Veulent'' (Women Who Do as They Please). The work was released In English in one

graphic novel A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...

volume with the title ''Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World''. The English version has only 29 stories instead of the original 30, as "Phoolan Devi, the Indian Queen of Bandits" was removed because it included the rape of a ten-year-old girl by her husband. ''Brazen'' has been translated into 11 languages, and each version is a little different due to local restrictions.

Reception

The first volume of ''Les Culottées'' sold over 75,000 copies in the first five months after its release. The English version of ''Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World'' received widespread recognition.

Awards

* 2019 :

Eisner Award The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books, sometimes referred to as the comics industry's equivalent of the Academy Awards. They are named in ...

for Best U.S. Edition of International Material

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Culottées, Les 2010s webcomics Historical webcomics French webcomics Feminist webcomics 2016 webcomic debuts Eisner Award winners