From 'Susan of St. Brides' to 'Heartbreak Hospital': nurses and nursing in the girls' comic from the 1950s to the 1980s

Nurses and nursing have appeared in fiction and non-fiction for both children and adults across a range of media including television, film, romantic novels and career books. These articulations of professional identity, produced variously to entertain or to promote entry into the profession have thrown up a range on images and stereotypes. There has been some critical analysis of these media representations, for example, in Julia Hallam's (2000) exploration of the profession, Nursing the Image. However, there is another medium, the British girls' comic, where the production of a large number of images of, and narratives about, nurses has been neglected in terms of critical attention. This article seeks, in part, to redress this neglect, through a close textual analysis of some key narratives.