The first Brenda Starr comic hit newspapers on June 30th, 1940, making today the 70th anniversary of the still running strip.
Starr, created by Dalia "Dale" Messick, started as an experimental Sunday supplement that was syndicated by the Chicago Tribune. A combination adventure/soap opera strip, the work eventually moved into the Sunday funnies proper, and in 1945 started appearing as a newspaper daily everywhere except in the Chicago Tribune itself, which cartoon historian Don Markstein attributes to the sexism of Tribune editor, Joseph Medill Patterson.
Patterson, who had fostered the careers of Milton Caniff (Terry and the Pirates) and Chester Gould (Dick Tracy,) previously ignored submissions from Messick, but when the cartoonist took a suggestion -- from Patterson's "gal Friday, Mollie Slott -- to change her first name to the gender neutral Dale, the publisher opted to pick up her serialized tale of a girl reporter making her way in a dangerous world. (Legend has it that Slott also inspired a change in the lead's profession from bandit to journalist, making the comic more palatable to Patterson.)
Starr's publication made Messick the first nationally syndicated female cartoonist, and she stayed with the strip until her "encouraged" retirement in 1980. Since then, it has been handled exclusively by female artists including Ramona Fradon (Metamorpho, SuperFriends) and June Brigman (Power Pack, Supergirl.)
The character has been translated to other media numerous times, having starred in a 1945 film serial, a 1976 television movie and a notorious 1989 feature film starring Brooke Shields (released stateside in 1992 with a resounding thud.) Starr was also one of 20 comic strips honored by the United States Post Office in its 1995 Comic Strip Classics commemorative stamp issue.
Although the number of markets the strip is published in has dwindled significantly since the height of its popularity (from over 250 to less than 20), the comic still sees print daily thanks to the work of Brigman and current writer Mary Schmich.
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