The end of the Brenda Starr comic strip may mean a little less confusion in Barbara Starr’s inbox.
It was announced yesterday that after 70 years, the current writer and illustrator of Brenda Starr would be inking their final strip. Brenda Starr, a reporter-turned-editor known for her globetrotting adventures and steamy romances, will be reporting her last on January 2.
It’s all bittersweet for CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr.
“As a little girl in my big eyeglasses and saddle shoes I remember every morning before school reading about Brenda’s latest adventures and thinking how wonderful she was,” Starr tells TVNewser.
But over the years, as Barbara Starr became a well-known reporter in her own right, viewers began confusing her with the other “Starr” reporter.
“I have over the years gotten mail and messages addressed to ‘Brenda Starr’ and been called Brenda quite often because people had ‘Brenda’ on their minds when they heard my name.”
“She really was a strong presence for a generation of readers and I think people just used her name inadvertently when contacting me,” says Starr. “People knew her.”
Starr, who joined CNN in 2001 from ABC News, ponders the influence Brenda Starr has had on women reporters — herself included. “I often think she must have been in the back of my mind when I enrolled in that first Journalism 101 course.”