Mary Tourtel was created in 1920, at a time when the "Express" was in competition with "The Daily Mail" and its then popular comic strip "Teddy Tail", as well as the strip "Pip, Squeak and Wilfred" in "The Daily Mirror". The then news editor of the "Express", Herbert Tourtel, was approached with the task of producing a new comic strip to rival those of the "Mail" and "Mirror" and immediately thought of his wife Mary, already an established author and artist. Rupert Bear was the result and was first published as a nameless character in a strip titled "Little Lost Bear" on
Daily Express Building, Manchester all these features share more in common with a futurist streamline moderne design rather than art deco. Only thirty five years after opening, the building was Grade II* listed on 3 October 1974. The initial clients of the building, the "Daily Express", left Manchester in the late 1980s, possibly because other buildings in the area were in a poor state of repair. However, after the "Daily Express" decided to leave the city, there was no new press which expressed interest in continuing the building's role as a printing centre, so instead this was discontinued; but printing does still continue in