Tribune Media Services, the syndicate that distributes the strip, announced in a news release this week that the carrot top with the blank eyes and the red dress “will take a final bow in traditional print form on Sunday, June 13, 2010. A new round of 21st century opportunities is being explored in digital and entertainment media.”
Gray died in 1968, but other cartoonists pitched in until Little Orphan Annie went into reruns in 1974. The strip was revived in 1979 and it has continued ever since.
In its heyday under Gray, Little Orphan Annie's story lines were "parables, folk tales, told with Bunyan-like simplicity, allegory and characterization," according to The World Encyclopedia of Comics. "Characters were easily identified by their names: (Daddy) Warbucks was orginally a munitions manufacturer; Mrs. Bleating-Hart a hypocritical do-gooder; Fred Free a wandering, kindly soul; J. Preston Slime a cynical two-faced reformer."
Gray died in 1968, but other cartoonists pitched in until Little Orphan Annie went into reruns in 1974. The strip was revived in 1979 and it has continued ever since.
In its heyday under Gray, Little Orphan Annie's story lines were "parables, folk tales, told with Bunyan-like simplicity, allegory and characterization," according to The World Encyclopedia of Comics. "Characters were easily identified by their names: (Daddy) Warbucks was orginally a munitions manufacturer; Mrs. Bleating-Hart a hypocritical do-gooder; Fred Free a wandering, kindly soul; J. Preston Slime a cynical two-faced reformer."
Reading between the lines, it sounds like Annie will get an extreme makeover and resurface somewhere else in unrecognizable form, once she abandons newspapers.
The Tribune Media Services release quoted Steve Tippie, a vice president there, as saying the focus “will be on bringing her more in line with current pop culture and shaping her development as a property that appeals to children and adults on a whole new level. We plan to grow Annie’s popularity by introducing her to new generations of audiences through new media and licensing applications.”
The Tribune Media Services release quoted Steve Tippie, a vice president there, as saying the focus “will be on bringing her more in line with current pop culture and shaping her development as a property that appeals to children and adults on a whole new level. We plan to grow Annie’s popularity by introducing her to new generations of audiences through new media and licensing applications.”
Writing in the Chicago Tribune, columnist Phil Rosenthal said June 13 “will be the first in generations to dawn without Annie appearing in a daily newspaper.” Rosenthal wrote that the final panel of the final strip “will end with Daddy Warbucks uncertain over what happened to Annie in her latest run-in with the Butcher of the Balkans. And, leaping lizards, what about her dog, Sandy? Arf."
Gee whiskers!
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