Brenda Starr: "-30-"

Image via WikipediaAfter a 70-year run as an intrepid literally ink-stained wretch, Brenda Starr, fiery red hair showing no hint of grey, is quitting the newspaper comic strip business.

According to a story in today's Chicago Tribune, Tribune Media Services has decided to end the comic strip on January 2, 2011, rather than find successors to current writer Mary Schmich and artist June Brigman, who decided to quit the strip after 25 years and 15 years, respectively.  The strip was the brainchild of former greeting-card artist Dale Messick, who penned the script from 1940 until she retired in 1980.

At its peak during the 1950s, the strip appeared in more than 250 newspapers worldwide. Presently, roughly 36 dailies carry the red-headed reporter's adventures, including The Boston Herald and The Chicago Tribune.

When Starr married her mysterious long-time eyepatch-wearing Brazilian beau Basil St. John in 1976, President Gerald Ford and First Lady Betty Ford sent their congratulations ("TUOL" is confident that the First Lady, at least, knew newlyweds Brenda & Basil were fictional characters).  The marriage produced a daughter, Starr Twinkle St. John, whose quirky moniker rivals that of Moon Unit and Dweezil Zappa, and no doubt doomed her to years of comic strip psychotherapy.

The fearless scribe flourished in the comics, but tanked in Hollywood, both in a 1976 TV movie starring Jill St. John (no relation to Basil), and even worse in a 1989 film that wasn't released until 1991 starring Brooke Shields and future 007 Timothy Dalton. She was also played by Joan Woodbury in an obscure 1945 serial.

Such is the state of the newspaper industry that even a voluptuous fictional journalist can't hold onto her job.

Leapin' Lizards! It's Curtains for Little Orphan Annie Comic Strip

Image via Wikipedia

The Chicago Tribune reports that Tribune Media Services will discontinue the Little Orphan Annie comic strip June 13, bringing the adventures of the auburn-haired, button-eyed orphan to a close after 85 years.

Introduced during the Coolidge Administration on August 5, 1924, by creator Harold Gray, who oversaw the strip for 44 years until his death in 1968, Little Orphan Annie, her faithful dog Sandy, wealthy industrialist Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks, and the mysterious Punjab and Asp have enjoyed success in the comics, radio, movies, and on Broadway.  Today, the strip runs in fewer than 20 newspapers, but in its heyday, hundreds of dailies featured the panel strip.

 The final strip will raise questions with Daddy Warbucks about Annie's fate after her encounter with the Butcher of the Balkans.  Although she no longer will appear in the daily comics, Tribune Media Services insists it will not be a hard-knock life for Annie, who may resurface in comics or on the silver screen. There's always "Tomorrow," for Annie fannies.

No comment from Annie, but "Arf," said Sandy.

Christopher St., Riverdale?:Archie Comics to Introduce Gay Character

Image via Wikipedia

Associated Press reports that Archie Comics, Inc. will enroll its first openly gay student at Riverdale High School when Kevin Keller debuts in the September 1, 2010, issue.

 Hunky blond Kevin Keller will have to rebuff the advances of frisky Veronica Lodge, according to a spokesperson for Archie Comics, and will best Jughead in a hamburger-eating contest. Readers wouldn't stand for a wiener-eating contest, because "Hot Dog" is the name of Jughead's beloved canine friend. What?

According to its Web site, more than 1.5 billion Archie comics have been sold. Over the years, popular spin-offs, such as Josie & the Pussycats and Sabrina, the teenage witch, have pumped up the financial ledgers.

No word on whether the debut of Keller will lead to other characters, such as "Big Moose" Mason and Benjamin Flutesnoot, questioning their sexual identity. "Over & Over," "Don't Touch My Guitar," and "Carousel Man," part of The Archies discography, may merit a second look.

Other comic book franchises may follow suit, depending on the readers' response to Kevin Keller. Don't expect to see Harvey (Milk) Comics on newsstands anytime soon.

Un-Funnies: Cash-Strapped Papers Strip Comics

Image via Wikipedia

ABC News' Web site today reports about another casualty of newspapers' declining ad revenues and plunging circulation--a cutback in comic strips.

The Portand Oregonian dropped 10 comic strips last year, while the Unification Church-owned Washington Times, in a money-saving move, slashed its Sunday comics section entirely (except for "Moon's-bury"). Increasingly, newspapers are shrinking the size of comics to squeeze the strips into a smaller content hole.

Although newspaper Web sites post comics online, the artists who draw the strips reap less compensation from the Internet. Generally, newer strips are the first to be eliminated, but long-established comics, such as "B.C.," are not immune to being dropped by newspapers.

During a newspaper deliverers' strike in July 1945, New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia went on the radio to read the Sunday comics so that youngsters wouldn't be deprived of their funnies.  "TUOL" sadly envisions the day when people ask: "What are the comics?" (For that matter, they may ask: "What's a radio?", but that's for another post.)

USA Today Looks to 'Man of Steel' for Help

USA Today, the flagship in the Gannett Co.'s newspaper chain, endured a 35 percent drop in ad revenues in the first quarter of 2009, on the heels of an 18.5 percent decline in ad revenues for the fourth quarter of 2008. Meanwhile, circulation figures for the national daily sank to 2.3 million copies, 1.3 million of which were distributed to hotels, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulation.

Gannett executives have confronted the dire numbers and reached the same conclusion--this is a job for Superman!

Beginning July 8 and running for 11 consecutive Wednesdays after that, USA Today will run the adventures of Superman, the flying strongman from Krypton, and his alter ego, Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for The Daily Planet. The July 8 full-page strip will appear in the print edition and the remaining 11 strips will run at www.usatoday.com. The move coincides with D.C. Comics launching "Wednesday Comics," in comic book stores. "Wednesday Comics" will feature superhero members of the D.C. Comics stable, including Batman, Hawkman, and Sgt. Rock (he of the rugged facial scar), in a broadsheet format (14x 20 in.) selling for $3.99 apiece.

USA Today, which launched in 1982, has fallen on hard times like the rest of the newspaper industry, losing readers to television and the Internet and ads to Craigslist, Monster.com and other online sites. With the same kind of forward thinking that print journalism has shown in its struggle for survival against Internet competition, USA Today has put its faith in an icon that originated in the 1930s. Sorry, Gannett, but look no further than "Superman Returns" (2006), Brandon Routh's less than star-making vehicle, that cost $270 million to make and generated domestic ticket sales of $200 million from a jaded American audience that prefers hunky Wolverine and teen-angst ridden Spiderman to the straight-arrow Superman.

Sadly, although it lacked a color weather map, The Daily Planet is thicker and more news-laden than USA Today and never seemed to worry about advertising lineage.