What if men suddenly transformed into women? The comic strip “Plop!” mischievously asks the question

Beneath its appearance of naive and zany fiction, this comic strip by Sébastien Fleuret and Simon Vergnol raises interesting questions. It is mainly inspired by a reality observed in fish from the Potomac River in the United States…

It’s a strange gender epidemic, an unprecedented health crisis, that Sébastien Fleuret imagines in Plop!, a comic strip which has just been published by Steinkis. Alex is at his friends’ house in Montreal to watch a hockey match on TV, when he suddenly feels a “Plop!” internal. Seized with abdominal pain, he locks himself in the toilet and discovers to his horror that his penis has disappeared. Better: his penis has given way to a vulva. Needless to say, his evening is ruined and he immediately returns to the fold take stock.

What’s happening to him ? A quick look on the internet allows him to see that he is not the only man victim of this untimely mutation in Canada. A call for testimony from a journalist, Emma, ​​has been launched. He goes to meet him. Together, with around fifteen other “mutants” gathered in a war council, they will carry out the investigation and trace the phenomenon which is disrupting their hormones.

Is it dangerous? Is it reversible? We must act quickly. Because their bodies continue to change: their chests point, their hair falls out. Then it is the painful periods that they experience, alongside that of sexual assault in transport.

Some are so ashamed that they hide from their loved ones. Yet “Tse, it’s not so bad being a woman”, Emma says to Alex. A society without men, “It’s not that it scares me, but it compromises the sustainability of the species”Alex worries.

In fact, he is getting used to his new female body quite well. But he questions his sexuality because despite his metamorphosis, he continues to be attracted to women, not men. Never mind: Emma, ​​who has no taste for men, is under the spell.

With the drawings of Simon Vergnol as naive, pop and colorful as the scenario, this comic perhaps does not go as far as it could have in the game of gendered experiences, but it casually raises some not-so-so questions. beasts.

First of all, how can we not say that if men could live even 24 hours in the skin of a woman (and vice versa), the world would be changed for the better? Then, the mutation being caused in the comic strip by the unscrupulous company Fig Barma (get it?), the excesses of the pharmaceutical industry and environmental risks are singled out. Finally, the media’s lack of interest in major issues (here health and ecological), for the benefit of spectacle, is also implicitly criticized.

Above all, the subject is far from being as crazy as we imagine. Because it is a very real fact which inspired the idea of ​​this story to the author Sébastien Fleuret, who is also a health geographer and research director at the CNRS.

In the early 2000s, scientists observed that fish in the Potomac River (United States) changed sex during their lives, with 80% of male bass displaying female characteristics. The cause: pesticides and certain veterinary products found in the waters of the river, which modify the endocrine system regulating the growth and sexual development of vertebrates, and in particular fish. With a high risk of species extinction. With its funny tone and its delicious Quebecois turns and expressions – “Tabernak!”, “La gang”, “Ma chouette” etc. – this mischievous comic strip raises awareness of various issues and twists the necks of some prejudices, in complete lightness.

“Plop!” by Sébastien Fleuret (screenplay) and Simon Vergnol (drawing) was published on April 11, 2024 by Steinkis.