[2] She studied for one summer at the Ray Commercial Art School in Chicago, but left to begin a career as a professional artist.

[4] Messick began working for a Chicago greeting card company[5] and was successful but quit when her boss lowered her pay during the Great Depression.

In 1933, she moved to New York City where she found work with another greeting card company at a higher salary, $50 a week, sending nearly half of it back to her family in Indiana.

You could walk down 42nd Street and have bacon and eggs and toast and coffee and hash brown potatoes and orange juice—the works—for 25 cents.

Messick was not the first female comic strip creator; Nell Brinkley, Gladys Parker and Edwina Dumm had all achieved success in the field, but there was still a bias against women.

[5] She created a variety of comic strips (Weegee, Mimi the Mermaid, Peg and Pudy, the Struglettes, Streamline Babies), but none was selected for publication.

"[7] Her break came when she came to the attention of another woman, Mollie Slott,[1] who worked as a "girl Friday" for New York Daily News publisher (and syndicate head) Joseph Medill Patterson.

Patterson, reputedly biased against female cartoonists, would not sign her up for daily publication in the News,[1] but he accepted Brenda Starr, Reporter for syndication as a Sunday comic, and it made its debut on June 30, 1940.

[8] Messick was not impressed with her successors' versions of Starr, according to a 1998 quote in the Sonoma County Independent: "Now it doesn't look like Brenda at all.

[10] In 1995, Brenda Starr, Reporter was one of 20 comic strips honored by a series of United States postage stamps; Messick was the only living creator.