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Pioneer female comic artist DALE MESSICK has died
Father geek here with the sad news that Dale Messick, whose long-running newspaper comic “Brenda Starr” paved the way for her entry into the male dominated world of comic art, has died at the age of 98.
Her strip ran in 250 newspapers at its height in the 1950s.
Born in South Bend on April 11, 1906 Messick worked on her artistic storytelling abilities while still young, scribbling adventurious drawings all over her schoolbooks and trying out tall-taled yarns on her friends. She studied art and like many famous comic artists got a job at a greeting card company, only to quit in the middle of the Great Depression, beginning to work on her cartoons at night. She took
the name of her lead character from a late 1930's socialite, and borrowed Brenda's knockout figure and long red hair from popular film star Rita Hayworth. By 1940 she had broken into the "Boy's Club" and was being published.
Flaming haired Brenda plunged from one hot adventure into another, holding her own against her tough as nails editor and many times filing her stories with the only person left in the newsroom, the cleaning woman, and
as World War II took over the frontpage headlines Brenda parachuted into action with every one of her fiery red hairs in perfect order. Young women read Brenda and dreamed of high adventure in exoitic lands. Teenaged boys liked the strip also, and many, thinking they were dealing with a male artist, asked Dale for personal sketches of Brenda in sexier poses than the newspaper would, or could print.
Dale received the National Cartoonist Society’s Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997 and she wrote
a single-panel newspaper strip “Granny Glamour” until the age of 92.
An inspiration to generations of young girls who would follow her into cartooning Dale's never-say-die spirit will be missed by comic fans around the globe.
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Just like Ginger on Gilligan's Island. RIP Dale and I hope you're drawing more Brenda Starr for the Big Guy right now.
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I read them here in Mexico City both in the newspaper and in comicbooks..... She many a chico's wet dream.
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Apr 09, 2005 6:06:38 PM CDT
The movie version ended Brooke Shields' screen career (and didn'
by frankdrebin
It's too bad Hollywood can't make a successful film with a female hero who user her smarts instead of doing the Buffy/Xena/Elektra butt-kicking thing (basically, just what a guy would do, but in a halter top). Maybe someday, they'll try it with Nancy Drew, only not too Disney-ish or too Buffy-ish.
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I just spent the evening having dinner with a fantastic 98-year-old woman, a dear friend. She's witty, totally lucid, lives alone in a two-story house, no walker - just an amazing person. She cooked dinner, had two cocktails, and looked like a million dollars in her spring outfit. I only say all this because we write off folks at that age, and this woman is a gem. You're DAMN right I'll be crushed when she dies. It's not about age, idiot, it's about the person.
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I have Ms Messick's autograph in my copy of Trina Robbins' "A Century of Women Cartoonists" -- where Trina describes Brenda Starr: "Messick's heroine, whose looks were based on film star Rita Hayworth's, parachuted from planes, joined girl gangs, escaped from kidnappers, almost froze to death on snow-covered slopes, and got marooned on desert islands. ... Messick opened the way for over a decade of action heroines in the comics. A year later, Wonder Woman... hit the newsstands in the December, 1941, issue of All Star Comics. The immortal amazon was the first costumed action heroine in comic books, but it would be 45 years before she was drawn by a woman." -- Brush up on your feminist history, guys. You're more than three decades out of date.
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It sounds fascinating. And the way medical science is going, one day - hopefully sooner rather than later - 98 will only be considered middle-aged. Or even adolescent.
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I met Dale in 1993 and spent four wonderful hours with her in Santa Rosa listening to her stories. What an amazing woman. She and I ended having lunch together and afterwards she showed me her original artwork. She allowed me to pick one and autographed it personalizing it which reads: To Brenda's other mystery man." (The title refers to Basil St. John, Brenda's eye-patch wearing love interest who always gave her a black orchid.) It hangs in a frame with a picture of us together and one of the comic books from the fifties of Brenda racing into the newsroom shouting "Stop the Presses!" An interesting item here: when "Brenda Starr- the Movie" was screened in New York, she was the only woman that outshined Brooke Shields at the event with the reporters surrounding her for intervews and photo ops. I will miss her graciousness and charm. I am very proud to have called her my friend.
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One last bit. There was a 40's serial that ran 12 chapters starring Joan Woodbury(From the 1964 movie "The Time Travellers.") It was to be out on tape several years ago but, two of the chapters are missing. I'd still like to see it.
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I was responding to two posts that are no longer present. Just to clarify.
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