Tribune to retire comics’ Brenda Starr

CHICAGO — No more late nights or looming deadlines for reporter Brenda Starr.

The redheaded comic heroine, whose first appearance came in a June 1940 Chicago Tribune insert, is putting the notebook away for good next month. Tribune Media Services, which owns Brenda Starr, announced yesterday that it is ending the feature’s newspaper syndication.

Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich and artist June Brigman said they’ve decided it was time to end their work on the seven-day-a-week strip that appears in about three dozen newspapers. The final episode of the soap opera cartoon created by the late Dale Messick will be published Jan. 2.