When the strip debuted on June 30, 1940, it was relegated to a comic book supplement that was included with the Sunday Chicago Tribune.

[4] During the 1930s, Messick submitted three more comic strips—Peg and Pudy and Streamline Babies were about "Depression-era heroines born ahead of their time, working girls come to the big city to earn their living", while Mimi the Mermaid explored a fantasy theme.

Feeling that editors were prejudiced against female cartoonists, Dalia signed these strips with a more ambiguous first name, "Dale".

Patterson's assistant, Mollie Slott—later the vice president of the syndicate—saw the discarded samples, and encouraged Messick to make Brenda a reporter.

Patterson accepted the strip, but ran it in the Chicago Tribune's Sunday comic book supplement, rather than the daily paper.

He refused to run it in his other paper, the New York Daily News, which finally carried Brenda Starr in 1948, two years after Patterson's death.

"[6] Following Messick's retirement as Brenda Starr's artist in 1980, the strip was continued by different female writer and illustrator teams.

Comics historians Steve Duin and Mike Richardson stated that "Dale Messick kept readers enthralled for years over the romance between Brenda Starr and her Mystery Man".

[15] Other regular characters include: However, Basil's mysterious assistant, a handsome Kazooki code-named "Ringo," persuaded Sage and Brenda to travel instead to Paris, France.

In the French capital, Ringo revealed two secrets to Brenda: 1) Basil was financing and training teachers to educate the Kazooki people (which would put Basil on a death list if found out by the repressive government of Kazookistan); and 2) Ringo was in love with Brenda.

They drink an entire bottle of champagne and Ringo recites mystic Sufi love poetry to Brenda.

When the bottle is empty, Ringo places a love poem by Hafez inside it, and casts it into the Seine, calculating that one day it will reach American shores.

The other members of the family—Taj, Raj, Caressa—are suspects in a major and complex conspiracy, including the assassination of journalists and a plot for brutal slum clearance.

When the new mayor, charismatic Sterling Golden, is implicated in a murder, Brenda flies off to Belize in Central America, in search of the missing green campaigner Verde.

[18] A Brenda Starr movie, produced for television, that starred Jill St. John in the lead role was released in 1976.

[20] In 2006, Tribune Media Services and actress Jenna Mattison were looking for producers to create a TV movie or series based on Brenda Starr.