And she’s about to celebrate her 100th birthday.
That’s right — my next comics project is a 100th anniversary tale for Annie, of Harold Gray’s Little Orphan Annie, the earliest years of which are in the public domain. The strip is called Annie Forever, and is set to run from June 13th to August 5th — from the fourteenth anniversary of the strip’s final instalment to the hundredth of its first. (It’s likely to run a little longer.)
If all you know Annie from is various versions of her musical, you might be surprised to learn that I feel strongly that Annie is one of comics’ great adventure characters — she’s plucky, she’s funny, she has a mean streak, and can do whatever she sets her mind to — but I also feel strongly that more modern incarnations of the strip, as well as the various versions of the musical, have largely wasted that aspect of her character. By the end of her own strip she’s a supporting character to more typical heroic leads, in her musical she’s precocious, a little kid. Though I can’t legally reference these versions, I am playing off them — Annie Forever is my attempt to transition her back to a place from which she could have another century of adventures… in which she‘s in charge.
You can find the first strip at annie.alexdaily.nl today — and then a new one every day starting tomorrow, on the 14th. I update after breakfast.
About Alex Daily
Alex Daily is a licensed cartoonist who’s about to graduate a bachelor’s degree in art education with good grades. Their previous work includes Noirtown, UNEND, and Aquila the Last Eagle, but their most-seen work is probably a logo for an American middle school you’ve never heard of. They long to return to the sea after centuries of exile.
About the public domain
I swear to breakfast I’m pretty confident this is completely legal, dear the syndicate please don’t sue me.