As Halloween creeps closer, I felt inspired to draw scary stuff… Not that I’m afraid of the advances in the field of reproductive health during the 20th century. I’m quite grateful for them.

Sometimes people ask what historical period I would like to live in. Well, the last 30 years have been pretty okay. Antibiotics and developed contraception methods guarantee that I can live my life without many of the worries that Mayann and her friends would have to deal with in reality. In biographies of people living in the 1910′s and 1920′s, it’s striking how many suffered and even died because of sexual health issues, even well-to-do people. Others were victims of psychiatric issues, and we still haven’t found solutions for many of those. And then there were countless quacks wreaking havoc on people’s savings and sanity.

Goldie is not a quack, of course. She represents the cutting edge of science with a feminist goal. Just look through her bookshelves for inspiration! The book right behind Falco’s ear is titled Idéologie d’hier: Dieu, la morale, la patrie (“Ideology of Yesterday: God, morals, fatherland”), by Dr Madeleine Pelletier, a famous French feminist doctor and social activist. No wonder our dear deacon recoils in horror. So what might Goldie be concocting? What makes even convinced animal rights activist Mayann beam with glee?

By the way, the word Guinea Pig in the sense of ‘object for experiments’ was first recorded in the English language precisely in the year 1920.