Review by Ian Keogh

Throughout her career the late Trina Robbins considered it objectionable that women artists working before the 1960s received almost no recognition for their contributions to building an artform. Adjacent to that is how comics and newspaper strips starring women don’t receive the recognition they deserve. Robbins and co-editor Peter Maresca redress the balance in Dauntless Dames by providing sample runs of ten under-appreciated strips to be fully appreciated in an oversized format.

More often than not, it’s the art that impresses more than the writing, which reflects the values of the times, while the innovation is frequently only having a woman in a role that many men already occupy. Russell Keaton’s Flyin’ Jenny is an accomplished pilot, Tarpe Mills’ Miss Fury occupies similar territory to Terry and the Pirates, and Jerry Albert and Bob Oksner’s Miss Cairo Jones is a hard boiled detective. They’re all professional without ever extending beyond their influences.

It’s the less likely material offering greater value and interest, beginning with the opening spotlight on Frank Goodwin’s Connie. For a nation that curates newspaper strips as well as the USA it’s astounding that so little of Godwin’s stunning illustrative work is available in collections. Connie progressed from society soap opera to adventurer to science fiction, and sample Sunday pages are included from each incarnation. Closing the book is Jackie Ormes’ Torchy, a romance serial whose original publication in racist times was restricted to newspapers published for the African American population. That was everyone else’s loss as Ormes work may not be as artistically accomplished as Godwin, but her stories constantly surprise.

Brenda Starr is the highest profile inclusion. Dale Messick drew the adventures of the ballsy reporter for forty years, and it continued for another thirty, with the sample strips from the early 1940s and the early 1960s. They show how Messick’s approach changes as the proactive Brenda finds herself in troubled waters.

The real treasures are the obscurities. Who knew one of the earliest superhero strips in newspapers was Russell Stamm’s Invisible Scarlett O’Neill, let alone that it’s illustrated in a charmingly goofy style? Even more remarkable is the bonkers Deathless Deer. Alicia Patterson and Neysa McMain have an Egyptian princess awaken from 3000 years of hibernation in the 1940s to explore her new era, first as a club dancer, then as a maid, accompanied by her similarly revived pet falcon Horus. She’s seen on the cover, and while the preface text notes the initial eccentricity deteriorated, the strips presented here are thoroughly entertaining despite the stiff artwork.

Rounding out the selection are the racy 1940s wartime adventure of Claire Voyant, drawn by Jack Sparling, and Myra North… Special Nurse. As written by Ray Thompson, nursing is low on the agenda as Myra becomes involved in 1930s crime mysteries where the perpetrators always seem to be Asian, so racist by today’s standards. Charles Coll, though, has an increasingly decorative illustrative style.

As a curated collection with introductory essays Dauntless Dames is first rate, but some readers may find many of the actual strips too much of their times.