When I saw the panel of Brenda Starr, in the Billy Ireland Museum, the things about it that intrigued me the most was that it was centered on a woman and, as a quick google search informed me, created by a woman as well. I’m not the most well versed in comics, but such notable female success in an industry with a reputation for being a bit of a boy’s club now let alone in the 40’s seemed rather impressive. Looking deeper into the history of the strip and its creator, Dale Messick, simply served to reinforce that impression.
Dale Messick changed her name from Dalia after moving to New York to make her name gender ambiguous. She sent numerous strips to different papers, but it wasn’t until the Tribune syndicate picked up Brenda Starr that she saw any success. It nearly wasn’t picked up, either. Patterson had disregarded the strip because he didn’t like the idea of working with a female artist, which he said had gone badly in the past, and it wasn’t until his assistant, Mollie Slott, insisted on it. The strip began running in the comic supplement of the Sunday Chicago Tribune on June, 30 1940. It did well enough that by the end of 1945 it was expanded for national distribution and a daily strip was added. Patterson, however, refused to let the strip run in the Daily News, so it wasn’t featured there until after his death. In the 1950’s, at the height of Brenda Starr‘s popularity, it was running in over 250 papers worldwide, and continued running in over three dozen papers, including the Chicago Tribune and Boston Herald, until it was ended on January 2nd, 2011. Messick ran production of the strip from its creation until she retired in 1982, making her the first female American syndicated comic strip artist. She wasn’t the first woman in comics, but she did get farther than any other woman in that time as the strip became wildly popular. When she died in 2005, Messick was credited as the “last living witness to the Golden Era of Comics.”
Brenda Starr remains the only comic strip to ever be run by only women. After Messick retired, writer Linda Sutter and artist Ramona Fradon took over the strip. Mary Schmich took over for Linda Sutter in 1985, and June Brigman for Ramona Fradon in 1995. Brenda Starr only ended when Schmich decided it was time for her to leave the strip and Tribune Media Services chose to end the strip rather than find someone else to write it.
The character of Brenda came from 30’s debutante Brenda Frazier, for the name, and Rita Hayworth, for the hair and figure. She was a reporter for the fictional newspaper, The Flash, who traveled the world on chasing adventures and stories. She was successful modern woman with great style and great romances. One of the most common criticisms of the strip was how unrealistic it was. Living female journalists would write in about how their lives weren’t nearly so exciting, and Messick would reply that the strip would sell if the action weren’t heightened. Instead of the hard grind of real life, Brenda Starr parachuted from planes and had a thirty year romance with mysterious, one eyed Basil St. John. She was always a bit weepy and ditzy, but still tough and still resilient. The strip worked off of the escapades of adventure strips, the soap opera drama of The Gumps, and the working woman theme and rolled them all together for a comic that would run for over 65 years.
The success spilled into other mediums, spawning paper-dolls, a 1989 film starring Brooke Shields, a 1976 TV movie starring Jill St. John, a 1945 serial starring Joan Woodbury. She even made it on a stamp in 1995 in the “Comic Strip Classics” series. Even if she isn’t mentioned much in pop culture anymore,Brenda Starr is still one of the most famous female comic characters, with a strip that broke barriers for women’s success in comics.
Sources:
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Dale-Messick-cartoonist-who-drew-Brenda-Starr-2717059.php
http://www.awn.com/mag/issue5.04/5.04pages/legermessick3.php3
http://www.toonopedia.com/br_starr.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenda_Starr,_Reporter_%28film%29
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-12-09/business/ct-biz-1209-phil-20101209_1_brenda-starr-dale-messick-newspapers
http://www.lambiek.net/artists/m/messick_d.htm
https://cartoonimages.osu.edu/index.cfm?fuseaction=search.seeItemInSearchResults&CollectionID=02d5386b-a575-4bfa-8005-cf676fd41345&ItemID=9228697f-451d-4a9a-af7b-40d00639e6dd&listOfKeyWords=starr
Dale Messick’s Brenda Starr, Sept. 1, 1940