LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE

I've started reading a recently-acquired volume in the series reprinting Harold Gray's famous comic strip LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE.  It's the second in the series, taking the strip to the end of the 1920s. (It's greatest stories, from the 1930s, lie just ahead.)

This strip, of course, is about a spunky red-haired orphan, her dog Sandy, and her millionaire benefactor Daddy Warbucks.  She was actually in an orphanage at the start of the strip, until Daddy adopted her.  But the strip's structure requires Daddy to disappear periodically, leaving Annie to rely on her own resources until his return.  She'd end up meeting honest working people, on the farm or in the city, work hard (in the circus, at a newsstand or elsewhere) and offer homespun wisdom.

Harold Gray was a great storyteller.  I remember being highly impressed back in the mid-1970s when they reprinted some of the strip's '30s stories.  The reprint introduction points out that Gray was heavily influenced by Charles Dickens, who often used young orphans as his heroes.

I got 90 pageviews on Monday!  Peter Pan must have attracted a lot of websearches.