Skip to main content

Comic Milestone: The Brenda Starr Byline Has Ended


Brenda Starr, the groundbreaking female reporter created in 1940 by Dalia (Dale) Messick, is coming to an end. Starr was a standout female character in the Golden Age of comics. Yet, her success was the result of her popularity as a syndicated newspaper cartoon strip, not as comic book property. Messick created the character for the Chicago Tribune Syndicate and despite resistance from the editors, the character resonated with readers. While initially not appearing in the Chicago Tribune, it was relegated to a Sunday supplement, by 1945 Brenda Starr had a daily strip and was one of the most popular characters in the Sunday paper. In that same year, the character made its first cross media appearance in a movie serial, Brenda Starr, Reporter starring Joan Woodbury. By the 1950s the character appeared in over 200 newspapers nationwide. The character's popularity is noteworthy because in an era where women were expected to suppress their career aspiration and return home after World War II, Starr career and actions gave voice to women's desire to pursue fulfillment outside the domestic sphere. A smart, liberated, and functional woman, Starr was always depicted as balancing professional and personal life--rejecting the societal pressure for women stay at home, but at the same time was feminine and had a love life--rejecting the degendering associated use to stigmatize career women.

While superhero comics struggled to provide strong female characters (beyond Wonder Woman), Starr made the jump to comics early. A short lived Brenda Starr, Reporter appeared from Four Star Publications in 1947. A second series was produced in 1948-49 by Superior Publishing. In 1955, Charleston Comics (the original home of characters such as Captain Atom, the Question, and the Blue Beetle) produced perhaps the most successful comic book starring the character. The character would reappear in a 1963 series published by Dell Comics. While comic book success for the character never equaled the newspaper readership, the character continued to be a cross media properties in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1976, a Brenda Starr telefilm starring Jill St. John appeared as an ABC Movie of the Week. In 1989, Brooke Shields starred in a critical and commercial disappointing Brenda Starr movie.

These appearances aside, Brenda Starr has remained a cornerstone of the daily newspaper cartoon page since her debut. Moreover, even after Messick's departure, the creators behind the character have remained women. The current creative duo of writer Mary Schmich and artist June Brigman are ending the series. The reasons for the ending are numerous. While the character's popularity in newspapers was a asset throughout most of its history, the contemporary newspaper market struggles to find readers. Moreover, while Brenda Starr has maintained a updated look and mainstream appeal, the character's appeal is very much middle-American suburban today. Influenced as much by soap opera pacing and characterization as by current events, young women or men are not reading Brenda Starr. For all the character's past glory, young readers know little about the character and have little exposure to the character. So, despite the her historic importance, she doesn't have the popularity or platform she once had to reach readers.

I suspect we will see a nice collection of Brenda Starr strips similar to the IDW's collection of Bloom County. There is no question the character desires that kind of treatment. Still, with the impact of the IPAD still being calibrated, it possible that the traditional newspaper strip might make a comeback. If that happens, I wouldn't be surprise to see Brenda Starr, Reporter make a return appearance.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Why blame comics for societal failure?

Why blame comics for societal failure? Society blamed comics for the societal failures because it was a fairly new industry, and as things seemed to go “wrong” they figured it must be comic books. When a child grew up during the war, his father was probably killing people and the military and his mother was probably making things in factories to help kill the opposition. The only things kids had to “babysit” them was comic books, and they read many different kinds. So when kids starting acting differently in this new generation the figured it must be the comic books. Society didn’t want to believe it may have been the internal and external scars war causes on the soldiers and their families. Also the fact that young unattended children are reading these comics may not be able to differentiate between fantasy and reality. When society fails it always needs a scapegoat then it was comic books next it was rock and roll. Society naturally resist change.

Mythology and Superheroes in Comics

Ohhh my goodness... When I decided on trying to analyze the mythological origins and references in superhero comics, I had no idea the can of worms I was opening up... On the one hand, it was awesome to see just how many connections there were between superheroes and psychology/mythology/philosophy, but all the information also made it terribly difficult to distinguish what I should be using and how to tie it all together. When I was talking to one of my sorority sisters about it she said, "Oh yeah, well, research essays are kind of like putting together puzzles..." and I think that really sums up what writing this paper was like for me. Fortunately, I was really interested throughout the whole process and I very much enjoyed writing the paper. Being a psychology major, I was especially interested in reading about the Jungian archetypes that had a lot of parallels with major modern comic books superheroes. I was also able to incorporate Joseph Campbell's "hero cycle...

The 1950s Are Often Portrayed As A Period of Social Cohesion...

People didn’t set the standards; the standards were set for you. The 1950s were not a time of social cohesion but it was misleading because it was a time of “don’t air your dirty laundry.” Women were to act perfect; the “Stepford wife” if you will, while the men went to work like “Don Draper.” Although the comic codes were in full fruition, people found ways to cause a raucous. Comic books were the reason that children were acting violently. Comic books are a media outlet and they didn’t have to follow the conservative nature that the decade seemed to promote. One of the most popular selling genres of that time was the Romance comics. The romance comics not only attracted male readers, but female readers as well. This, alone, can be alarming for the “social cohesion” of the 50s because men expected their wives to be at home all day cooking, cleaning, caring for the children, etc. They didn’t want their wives spending any additional time reading comic books. Perhaps the comic co...