Remember Brenda Starr’s cousin Abretha Breez, a woman mocked for being too large to fit through a kitchen door to get more cake? As you may recall, she had a crush on steam shovel operator Everett Diggin, which didn’t work out, since the guy had a crush on Brenda. Was Abretha able to find a soulmate, or was she destined to forever be held up as an example of a woman too overweight to ever be seen as desirable?

We seem to find our answer in Brenda Starr #9 (July 1949), though you never know—since I was unable to find anything but the covers to issues #7 and #8, there could have been answers there as well.

The lead story in this issue begins with Brenda and Abretha heading off to an auction at a Chinese antique shop, where Brenda wins two bookends for a buck. But something’s up with those bookends, because a latecomer offers Brenda $100 for them. She refuses, of course (or there wouldn’t be a story), so the man offers her $200! But Brenda turns him down again. And why would she refuse $200 in 1949, which is apparently the equivalent of $1,948.64 today?

“I’m a typical woman,” she says. “If anybody else wants it, I’m determined to keep it.”

Since we can read the guy’s thoughts, we know something’s up, because he gripes that “she’s walking off with a fortune and she doesn’t know.”

Brenda then leaves Abretha alone with the bookends because she wants to “run over to a couple of shops and see some of the new gowns.”

I’ll leave it to others to explicate the meaning of Brenda’s cliched behavior so far, because I’m more concerned with the treatment of Abretha—who I’m happy to say in this story now looks like more a human being rather than the caricature she was before.

That more realistic rendering, however, doesn’t mean that when the con man shows up at the gals’ apartment with flowers and candy, Abretha isn’t stereotypically distracted by the candy, giving him time to swipe one (but not both) of the bookends.

But after he turns thief and goes on the run , does Abretha care? Nope—she still has her fantasies. Because “even a crook is better’n no man at all.”

They don’t get much chance to sleep, though, because that crook sneaks back and tries to steal the second bookend, which has some yet-to-be-revealed riches inside. But Brenda throws one of her high-heeled shoes at him, knocking the gun from his hand. Determined to get to the bottom of this, Brenda heads back to the Chinese antique shop the next morning in hopes that the owner will be able to explain it all.

Meanwhile, as Abretha worries about letting Brenda go off other own, she attracts the attention of a working man named Peter who likes she shape she’s in …

… and offers to help in any way he can. It’s an offer Abretha accepts.

While they race to meet up with Brenda, the owner of the antique shop discovers a huge ruby—worth $100,000—hidden in the other bookend. This find gets him shot by the thief, after which Brenda makes a run for it, though she is eventually cornered and threatened with a ceremonial knife.

But don’t worry—help in on the way!

Peter takes care of the guy with one blow …

… after which the police reveal him to be “Singapore Charlie, the Jewel Thief from the Far East.” And it turns out there’s a big reward for his capture.

At story’s end, Abretha seems to have found her match—a man who treats her right and likes her just the way she is.

Considering all the comics I’ve encountered lately which warn fat girls they’ll be lonely and unwanted, that’s an ending I can endorse!