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Little Orphan Annie: The Complete Daily Comics #3
Little Orphan Annie, Volume 3: And a Blind Man Shall Lead Them, 1930-1931
Now with all Sundays in color for the first time in more than 75 years! The action never stops as Annie gets shipwrecked with Spike Marlin for months on end. Then the Depression and rival businessmen wreck "Daddy" Warbucks's empire, leaving him broke and ruined. He and Annie rent a cheap room from Maw Green, and Annie gets a job, while "Daddy" finds work as a truck driver. But a near fatal accident leaves him blind! He meets Flop-House Bill and hatches a plot to claw his way back to the top against the very same rascals who forced him to lose everything in the first place!
Volume 3 in The Library of American Comics presentation of Little Orphan Annie includes every daily and Sunday from April, 1930 until the end of 1931.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 2009
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About the author
Harold Gray
116 books7 followersHarold Lincoln Gray was an American newspaper artist and cartoonist.
Gray grew up on a farm near the small town of Chebanse, Illinois. He graduated from Purdue University with a degree in engineering, but as an artist, he was largely self-taught. A former letterer for Sidney Smith on The Gumps, he came up with a strip idea in 1924 for Little Orphan Otto. The title was quickly altered by Chicago Tribune editor Joseph Medill Patterson to Little Orphan Annie.
By the 1930s this strip had evolved from a crudely-drawn melodrama to a crisply rendered atmospheric story with novelistic plot threads. The dialogue consisted mainly of meditations on Gray's own deeply conservative political philosophy.
Gray sometimes ghosted Little Joe (1933-72), the strip by his assistant (and cousin) Ed Leffingwell which was continued by Ed's brother Robert. Maw Green, a spin-off of Annie was published as a topper to Little Orphan Annie. It mixed vaudeville timing with the same deeply conservative attitudes as Annie.
Harold Gray was a charter member of Lombard Masonic Lodge #1098, A.F. & A.M. in 1923.
Gray grew up on a farm near the small town of Chebanse, Illinois. He graduated from Purdue University with a degree in engineering, but as an artist, he was largely self-taught. A former letterer for Sidney Smith on The Gumps, he came up with a strip idea in 1924 for Little Orphan Otto. The title was quickly altered by Chicago Tribune editor Joseph Medill Patterson to Little Orphan Annie.
By the 1930s this strip had evolved from a crudely-drawn melodrama to a crisply rendered atmospheric story with novelistic plot threads. The dialogue consisted mainly of meditations on Gray's own deeply conservative political philosophy.
Gray sometimes ghosted Little Joe (1933-72), the strip by his assistant (and cousin) Ed Leffingwell which was continued by Ed's brother Robert. Maw Green, a spin-off of Annie was published as a topper to Little Orphan Annie. It mixed vaudeville timing with the same deeply conservative attitudes as Annie.
Harold Gray was a charter member of Lombard Masonic Lodge #1098, A.F. & A.M. in 1923.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 19, 2021
I honestly love Gray's Little Orphan Annie, but these are not peak years. Annie spends time fostering a bear cub and a stolen infant, and both are adorable, but there's a shipwreck story that drags on foreeeeever and Warbucks losing his fortune for what is already like the third time is a snooze.
There's a lot of conservative Gray's bootstrap philosophy, but Gray actually considers the difficulties poor people face. Even Warbucks gets stuck in the poverty trap until someone stakes him $10,000. Bootstrapping comes across as inspirational here, rather than punitive or dismissive.
Ok, but not the best volume.
There's a lot of conservative Gray's bootstrap philosophy, but Gray actually considers the difficulties poor people face. Even Warbucks gets stuck in the poverty trap until someone stakes him $10,000. Bootstrapping comes across as inspirational here, rather than punitive or dismissive.
Ok, but not the best volume.
November 1, 2017
Starts getting a bit preachy but still enjoyable
November 26, 2010
Volume three in this excellently done series of complete daily and Sunday strips. As the forward points out, the plotting has grown tighter and the story lines longer and more assured. The depression has gotten bad and even Daddy Warbucks has hit bottom, again, but this time he is as lost as the other "common men" in the country. Even the author advocates communities and the government getting organized and helping out. Of course, the real solution is business men advertising and generating business and jobs. Wait a minute.... that sounds very familiar and timely!
The forward's other theory, that Annie is proto-feminist art, is a little hard to agree with.
Still waiting for the Asp and Punjab to come on the scene.
The forward's other theory, that Annie is proto-feminist art, is a little hard to agree with.
Still waiting for the Asp and Punjab to come on the scene.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews