CHICAGO — Come this summer there will be no more tomorrows for “Annie.”
After 85 years, Tribune Media Services announced Thursday that it will cease syndication of the comic strip featuring the iconic redheaded orphan on Sunday, June 13. Instead, the company will bring Annie into the Internet age by pursuing new audiences for her in digital media and entertainment, like mobile readers and graphic novels.
“I’m going to miss the girl a lot,” Jay Maeder, the strip’s writer, said Thursday. “I wrote her for 10 years. She was a fairly large part of my everyday life.”
“Little Orphan Annie” made its newspaper debut on August 5, 1924, first written and illustrated by creator Harold Gray. The strip later was renamed simply “Annie,” telling tales of the spunky orphan adopted by Daddy Warbucks and joined by her lovable dog, Sandy.
Annie was famous for wearing a red dress with white collar and cuffs. Over the decades she became the center of the 1930s radio program “Adventure Time with Orphan Annie,” a 1977 Broadway musical and several movies.
“It is no longer a great marketplace for adventure comic strips in the daily newspapers,” said Maeder, of Houston. “It’s not surprising to me that at some point the strip would come to an end.”
Less than 20 newspapers in the United States currently take the comic strip, and Tribune Media Services vice president of licensing Steve Tippie said the cost of creating the strip started to outweigh its revenue. Tippie said the company is considering future live-action and animated television and film projects for the character.
“Our emphasis going forward 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,” Tippie said.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
