Above: In 2019, Søren Vinterberg reviewed Sussi Bech’s Samlede Værker in the weekly Danish newspaper Weekendavisen and highlighted its many tough comic-book heroines.

Strong Heroines in Comics

kvinder-i-tegneserier-stærke-tegneseriekvinder — **Fra Nofret 1:** “Grab them by the pussy” — long before #MeToo and Donald Trump.

Strong female comic-book characters are no longer a rarity or a scarce commodity on the Danish comics scene.

Today, there are so many “comics about strong women,” created by and for women, that their works almost constitute a genre of their own.

But that was not the case when Sussi Bech made her debut as a comics artist in the early 1980s.

At the time, there were only a handful of (otherwise excellent) foreign comics with female protagonists. And they all had one thing in common: they were written and drawn by men—for men. Women did not read comics, people claimed back then. As a result, there were very few comics about women or aimed at female readers.

And female comics creators were an almost unknown phenomenon.

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Nofret – A Princess from Crete with a Mind of Her Own

In 1985, the Danish comics scene was introduced to a fiery, quick-witted princess named Nofret, who refused to let men rule her life.

The series was written and illustrated by Sussi Bech, who had already achieved her major breakthrough in 1984 with the comic Zainab, which appeared as a Sunday serial in the newspaper Berlingske Tidende. But Sussi left Zainab’s One Thousand and One Nights setting behind in favor of Nofret and the world of ancient Egypt.

“As I immersed myself in the historical background of the One Thousand and One Nights tales, I became increasingly aware of the realities. Most of the stories take place during the reign of the Caliph Harun al-Rashid in the late eighth century. A woman had very little freedom during that period. She was required to be completely veiled whenever she appeared in public,” Sussi writes in the afterword to Nofret – Samlede historier I, published in 2018 and collecting the first three Nofret stories.

“En kvinde i oldtidens Egypten havde langt større frihed end en kvinde i den tidlige middelalders Mellemøsten. Derfor gik jeg i gang med Nofret. Hovedpersonen i min nye serie skulle naturligvis være en kvinde. Jeg lod hende have rødder i det minoiske Kreta. Så havde jeg mulighed for at lade hende vende tilbage dertil i en senere historie. I den minoiske civilisation på Kreta havde kvinderne – så vidt vi ved – et større ord at skulle have sagt. Nogle forskere har ligefrem påstået, at de havde et matriarkalsk styre.”

“A woman in ancient Egypt enjoyed far greater freedom than a woman in the early medieval Middle East. That is why I began working on Nofret. Naturally, the protagonist of my new series had to be a woman. I gave her roots in Minoan Crete so that I would have the opportunity to let her return there in a later story. In the Minoan civilization of Crete, women—so far as we know—held a much stronger position. Some scholars have even argued that it was a matriarchal society.”

“One of the Most Original Female Characters in Comics”

In his review of Volume 2, Jakob Stegelmann wrote:

“Sussi Bech’s Nofret has quietly but unmistakably become one of the most original female characters in the history of comics—completely detached from both the romantically feminine women and the gaudy femme fatales who otherwise populate the medium. Nofret is the master of her own destiny. She has her own morality, her own emotions, and although her cynicism is probably the result of the disappointments she suffers in the first part of the story, it has nevertheless been a defining element of her personality from the very beginning. Quite simply, Nofret is a woman who breaks free of every cliché.”

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The library reviewers, too, looked fondly upon the fiery comic-book heroine. In his review of Volume 4, Birger Hoff wrote:

“The protagonist, Nofret, is at once both attractive and exasperating, socially committed yet perfectly willing to devise and carry out intrigues. In short, she is a human being with both virtues and flaws—and one of the most fascinating female characters in contemporary comics.”

Throughout the 1980s, Sussi increasingly became known as “Denmark’s female comics creator,” often in articles and interviews revolving around the theme that “women make comics too.”

When Sussi became the first female comics creator to receive the Ping Prize in 1994, Ritzau’s news agency described her as “known for her stories about resourceful women from ancient Egypt.”

Herover: Aida Nur convinces Alistair that she is perfectly capable of taking care of her own safety.

More Strong Women in Comics: Aida Nur and The Cunning Dalila

In 1991, Sussi expanded her body of work with another comic series, Aida Nur, once again featuring a female protagonist. This time the story was set in Egypt during the 1920s, but the men were still the ones who expected to be in charge and underestimated the women around them.

READ ALSO: Nofret-plakater af Sussi Bech – en oversigt

Aida Nur therefore makes her own way in the world. She first secures a position as a solo dancer at Mohassib’s nightclub—in return for selling black-market antiquities on his behalf—and later ensures that she receives her share of the pharaonic princess’s tomb discovered in the Valley of the Kings by her friend’s son. The British archaeologist Alistair and his patron, Lord Cnarvorn, are determined to excavate the site without her assistance, but Aida has other ideas.

In 1993, Sussi’s youthful work, The Cunning Dalila, was published. A precursor to Zainab, it tells the story of the two spirited women Dalila the Daring and Zainab the Crafty as they fight for justice in Harun al-Rashid’s Baghdad.

When Dalila’s husband dies, she is unable to retain his position as the Caliph’s keeper of the carrier pigeons simply because she is a woman—even though she has in fact been doing the job herself for years while her husband was alive. To make matters worse, the Caliph appoints the underworld’s two most notorious rogues, Crooked Ahmed and Menace Hassan, as chiefs of police on the grounds that they are such accomplished criminals.

Dalila realizes that the road to wealth and high office lies through spectacular dishonesty. Determined to prove that a woman can be every bit as clever and devious as any man, she embarks on a series of sensational thefts targeting the city’s wealthy citizens. Before long, stories of her exploits reach the Caliph himself.

seje-tegneserieheltinder
Herover: Sussi putting the finishing touches to Nofret Volume 8, The Tomb Robbers, at Studio Gimle in 1994.

Woman, Know Your Comics Gender

In 1997, the newspaper Det Fri Aktuelt published the article “Woman, Know Your Comics Gender” by Jakob Høyer. In it, Anders Hjorth-Jørgensen pointed out that while male comics creators had often portrayed women as little more than voluptuous, sensual ideals, a shift was now taking place because more women were creating comics—and more women were reading them:

READ ALSO: 10 ting du ikke vidste om Sussi Bechs “Nofret” tegneserie

“In Denmark, this can be seen in the work of artists such as Nikoline Werdelin and Sussi Bech, whose Café strips and the Nofret series respectively have attracted many female readers. Female artists depict themselves as they really are. There is far less artifice in their portrayals of women. As a woman, it is hardly very nourishing to read stories about women who are forever getting into trouble and having to be rescued by men.”

Women in Comics: Nofret Is No Longer Alone

As recently as 2009, Kim Larsen noted in an interview with Serieland.dk, that:

“Sussi Bech is one of the very few professional comics artists in Denmark today, something she deeply regrets. ‘It’s a shame that there are no female creators of comic albums anymore. As the years go by, I miss it more and more—to have female colleagues with whom I can share a sense of community. I’m not entirely sure why. Perhaps because there are subtle differences in the way we work.'”

In November 2013, Matthias Wivel wrote in the newspaper Information about the historically small number of female comics creators in Denmark:

“There are, of course, notable exceptions, but they prove the rule. Sussi Bech’s Nofret is among Denmark’s most beloved comic series, and Nikoline Werdelin is one of our most significant comics creators of all time, yet until very recently they stood very much alone.”

That has certainly changed over the past decade. Female comics creators such as Tatiana Goldberg, Karoline Stjernfelt, Stine Spedsbjerg, Ina Korneliussen, and many others have entered the Danish comics scene, enriching the medium with stories about strong women—and women who are not always so strong.

Nofret no longer stands alone in asserting the female perspective in a field long dominated by men.

READ ALSO: Personerne i Nofret-serien: Hvem er din favorit?

Yet for nearly five decades, Nofret has delighted and inspired the many female readers who, as it turned out, had been there for comics all along.

About Sussi Bech

Sussi Bech was born in 1958 in Birkerød, Denmark. She has created more than twenty comic albums featuring the Cretan princess Nofret, the dancer and adventurer Aida Nur, The Cunning Dalila, and other characters, often with stories set in the ancient world. She also draws the weekly comic strip Eks Libris for Weekendavisen. In addition, she has illustrated Kaj and Andrea, Snus Mus, and Emmy, and written the children’s books Aziru and The Tomb Robber’s Apprentice.

Sussi has received numerous awards, including the BØFA Prize, the Ping Prize, the Birkerød Culture Prize, the Hanne Hansen Prize, and, most recently, the Swedish Adamson Statuette (Adamsonstatuetten), which she received in 2015 during the 50th anniversary celebration of the Swedish Comics Academy in Stockholm.

Sussi is currently working on a new comic that takes place in Rome during the 8th century AD, the age of Charlemagne. The first volume will be published in 2027 or early 2028.

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