Last night, GSN ran an episode of What's My Line? from 1955 (I believe) where one of the contestants signed in as Mrs. Dale Strom. She was introduced that way because one or more of the panelists might have recognized her maiden (and professional) name, Dale Messick, as the creator of the comic strip, Brenda Starr. Dale, who will be 99 years old in April, began drawing the adventures of the intrepid lady reporter in 1940 and, it is said, never missed a deadline — not even to birth her children — until she handed the strip off to others in 1980. The above photo is from around the time that happened.
Brenda Starr was a popular feature that never quite made it onto the radar of comic strip buffs. I'm not sure why. It was drawn with great energy and humor, and the writing stands up far better than many strips of its era. Years ago, afforded the opportunity to read long runs of classic funnypage faves, I found some were readable and some were not. Li'l Abner was, Flash Gordon wasn't…though with Flash Gordon, looking at the pictures was sometimes enough. The Phantom, I could read. Mark Trail, I could not…and Harold Gray's talky, preachy Little Orphan Annie actually induced some form of Attention Deficit Disorder in me. I would read Panel One and literally forget everything about it while making the brief trip over to Panel Two.
But like I said, Brenda Starr was fun and while it's probably not on anyone's short list of Comic Strips That Deserve To Be Republished In Their Entirety, the way Peanuts is now being reprinted, you could do a lot worse. Seeing its maker on What's My Line? last night prompted me to suggest that there's a strip worthy of more attention. (The current version by June Brigman and Mary Schmich ain't bad, either.)