Les Femmes en Blanc

Women in white (Les Femmes en Blanc)
No. of issues	42
Page count	46 pages
Publisher	Dupuis
Creative team
Writers	Raoul Cauvin
Colourists	Leonardo
Editors	Philippe Bercovici
Original publication
Published in	Spirou
Issues	No. 2240

Les Femmes en Blanc (Women in white) is a Belgian-French comics humor series of 42 album volumes, ^[1] scripted by Belgian comic writer Raoul Cauvin and drawn by French comic artist Philippe Bercovici. Colours were done by Leonardo. The series debuted in 1981 in the Belgian comic book magazine Spirou and the first volume was released in 1986.

Synopsis

The setting of the series is a field hospital. The series deals with the troubles of nurses in a humorous and sometimes ironic, sometimes comic fashion.

A series of short stories with a title are illustrated, and usually deal with some foible, with a medical problem or quirk. For example, in volume 29, the story A malin, malin et demi deals with a patient with nausea, vomiting, and dizziness. The nurse helps him to the bathroom and back. The toilet starts to run and the nurse calls a plumber to fix it. He discovers a bottle of booze in the tank, nearly empty. The nurse realizes that the patient is an alcoholic and has been going to the bathroom to drink and arranges to dry him out. The plumber then tells his incredulous wife at dinner. ^[2]

Characters

Over the albums (whose titles contain puns), several characters appear regularly as the doctor or nurse Nathalie Minet or nurse Lisette.

Albums (Dupuis issues)

• Les Femmes en blanc (Women in White) (1986)
• Gaze à tous les étages (Gaze at all floors) (1987)
• Superpiquées (Super nosedives) (1987)
• Les jeunes filles opèrent (Girls operate) (1988)
• J'étais infirme hier (I was crippled yesterday) (1989)
• Gai rire à tout prix (Gay laugh at all costs) (1989)
• Pinces, sang, rires (Pliers, blood, laughter) (1990)
• Six foies neufs (Six new livers) (1991)
• Piquées de grève (Dotted strike) (1992)
• Machine à coudre (Sewing Machine) (1992)
• Sang dessus dessous (Blood-turvy ^{[notes 1]} ) (1993)
• Cœur d'artiste chaud (Heart of the hot artist) (1994)
• En voie de disparition (Endangered) (1995)
• Des corps rompus (Broken Bodies) (1996)
• Avant que le cor ne m'use! (Before the horn does not wear out!) (1996)
• Elle met mal l'alèse (She puts the wrong mattress) (1997)
• Le drain sifflera trois fois (High Noon ^{[notes 2]} ) (1998)
• Opération duo des nonnes (Operation two nuns) (1998)
• L'aorte sauvage (The Wild aorta) (1999)
• Je panse donc je suis (I'm dressed so I) (2000)
• Corps de garde (Body Guard) (2000)
• Délivrez-nous du mâle (Deliver us from men ^{[notes 3]} ) (2001)
• Perles rares (Rare Pearls) (2002)
• Si le cœur vous en dit (If your heart says) (2003)
• Lésions étrangères (Foreign Lesions) (2004)
• Opération en bourse (Operation stock exchange) (2005)
• Viscères au poing (Viscera in hand) (2005)
• Invité donneur (Guest donor) (2006)
• Au diable la varice (To hell with the varicose) (2007)
• Overdose (Overdose) (2008)
• Rentabilité maximum (Maximum profitability) (2009)
• Le chant du panaris (The Song of paronychia ^{[notes 4]} ) (2010)
• Sangsue alitée (Bedridden leech) (2011)
• Lavez, Maria (Wash, Maria) (2012)
• Des lits de fuite (Leakage beds) (2013)
• Neuf mois de gros stress (Nine months of stress) (2014)
• Un bacille heureux (A happy bacillus) (2015)
• Potes de chambre (Roommates) (2016)
• Baby Boum ! (Baby Boom!) (2017)
• Soufflez ! (Blow!) (2018)
• Traitement et sale air ! (Treatment and dirty air!) (2019)
• La radio de la méduse (Jellyfish radio) (2020)

Translations

The series has also been published as

• Mujeres de blanco (Spanish)
• Vrouwen in 't Wit (Dutch)
• Humor Rumah Sakit (Indonesian)

Notes

1. A play on topsy-turvy
2. A pun on the film High Noon
3. A pun on Deliver us from evil, playing on the similarities of mâle (male) and mâl (evil)
4. A pun on whitlow

References

1. "Le nouvel album" (in French). Les Femmes en Blanc. Retrieved 16 June 2010. - Le chant du panaris - Les femmes en blanc, n°32
   Le 15 janvier 2010
2. Bercovici, Philippe; Cauvin, Raoul; Léonardo (Feb 8, 2007). Au diable la varice. Les Femmes en Blanc (in French). Vol. 29. Belgium: Dupuis. pp. 32–35. ISBN   978-2-8001-3881-7. Tu ne vas peut-ėtre pas me croire, mais cette apres-midi. En reparant des toilettes, J'ai diagnostiquė un malade. (You're not going perhaps not believe me, but after this afternoon. By repairing the toilets, I diagnosed a patient.)

External links

• Editions Dupuis