Dalia Messick (April 11, 1906 – April 5, 2005) was an American comic strip artist who used the pseudonym Dale Messick. She was the creator of Brenda Starr, Reporter, which at its peak during the 1950s ran in 250 newspapers. Early life Messick was born in South Bend, Indiana, on April 11, 1906. Her father, Cephas Messick, was a sign painter and vocational arts teacher. Her mother Bertha was a milliner and seamstress; her work inspired some of the glamorous hats used in the Brenda Starr strip. After her family moved to Hobart, Indiana, Messick, who repeated third and eighth grades, attended Hobart High School, earning her degree at age 20. She studied for one summer at the Ray Commercial Art School in Chicago, but left to begin a career as a professional artist. Greeting cards Messick began working for a Chicago greeting card company and was successful but quit when her boss lowered her pay during the Great Depression. In 1933, she moved to New York City where she found work with another greeting card company at a higher salary, $50 a week, sending nearly half of it back to her family in Indiana. She recalled, "I had $30 a week to live it up. You could walk down 42nd Street and have bacon and eggs and toast and coffee and hash brown potatoes and orange juice—the works—for 25 cents." Comic strips She began assembling a portfolio of comic strip samples. Messick was not the first female comic strip creator; Nell Brinkley, Gladys Parker and Edwina Dumm had all achieved success in the field, but there was still a bias against women. Messick decided to change her first name to the androgynous "Dale" so her work would be seen by editors. She created a variety of comic strips (Weegee, Mimi the Mermaid, Peg and Pudy, the Struglettes, Streamline Babies), but none was selected for publication. Brenda Starr, Reporter Messick created the character of Brenda Starr in 1940, naming it after 1930s debutante Brenda Frazier, and basing her appearance on Rita Hayworth. Messick wanted to produce a strip with a female protagonist; she decided a career as a reporter would allow her character to travel and have adventures, albeit adventures more glamorous than those actually experienced by most reporters. She said in a 1986 article in the San Francisco Chronicle, "I used to get letters from girl reporters saying that