Lorna Alkana

I’m collaborating on a comic biography of the woman in the drawing below.  The drawing is based on the only known image (a painting) of Suzanne Voilquin*.

Suzanne Voilquin was a French feminist in the early 19th century.  She began her revolutionary life as a Saint-Simonian.  She lived in France, Russia, Egypt, and New Orleans, working as an advocate for female autonomy, a writer for news publications, and a midwife/doctor for people who really needed it.  She had no money.  Feminists had it rough back then (especially poor feminists).  Not only did she challenge the dominant paradigm (that woman are inferior to men/patriarchy) and pave the way for the modern feminist road (that we’re still paving), she did it wearing a giant, heavy dress and all of the undergarments.  She did it without tampons/pads.

*The Wikipedia page of Suzanne is only available on the French Wiki site (though it’s translatable depending on your browser).  This lack of representation (of such a phenomenal woman) is part of our motivation to write her biography.