Harold Gray’s
“One of the most impressive comic-strip collections ever produced.” — The Washington Times LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE DEBUTED on August 5, 1924, and Harold Gray continued to write and draw the comic strip for forty-four years, until his death, after which it was continued, on and off, by other hands for more than two additional decades. Little Orphan Annie has become a cultural icon—in both her red-headed, blank-eyed appearance, and as the embodiment of American individuality, spunk, and self-reliance. Even those who’ve never read the comic strip are keenly aware of the plucky orphan, her loveable mutt Sandy, and her adoptive benefactor, Oliver “Daddy”Warbucks, through the Broadway play, the hit movie, and the song “Tomorrow,” made famous by both.
FROM THE INTRODUCTION BY JEET
$49.99 (Different in Canada)
HEER EISNER AWARD NOMINEE
The Tik Tok story is many things: a sardonic self-portrayal combined with a settling of scores [with his syndicate] and also Gray’s fullest statement about the life of a comic strip artist…. We get a fictionalized version of the birth of Little Orphan Annie, with Gray re-cast as a bragging artist whose dreams are initially bigger than his accomplishments. Tik Tok’s self-praise as The World’s Greatest Cartoonist echoes the Chicago Tribune’s slogan as “The World’s Greatest Newspaper.” In a nice Mobius strip twist, the inspiration for Tik Tok’s breakthrough strip “Little Widget the Waif” is none other than Annie herself.
“A MUST-READ” —New York Times Week in Review ®
Volume THIRTeEn
The Complete
SPIES AND COUNTERSPIES
e
HAROLD GRAY IN THIS VOLUME:
1947 TO 1948 Harold Gray was born in 1894 in Kankakee, Illinois, and began his cartooning career as an assistant to Sidney Smith, creator of the famously successful strip The Gumps. Gray wrote and illustrated Little Orphan Annie for more than four decades, from 1924 until 1968.
Tik ToK
DAILIES and COLOR SUNDAYS 1947-1948
NEARLY 600 SEQUENTIAL COMIC STRIPS FROM 1947–1948 LibraryofAmericanComics.com idwpublishing.com • $49.99
America’s Spunkiest Kid Meets the World’s Greatest Cartoonist!
Will “The World’s Greatest Cartoonist” get a chance to prove his worth? And if so, will the public take into their hearts an orphan character with the unlikely name of “Little Widget, the Waif ”? That may be the least of Annie’s worries as she finds herself caught between spies and counterspies in an adventure that reprises the quest for “Daddy” Warbucks’s formula to defend against the atomic bomb! And if that weren’t enough, the enigmatic Joe Christmas enters the picture, the mysterious Mr. Am returns, and Annie comes face to face with the man she most likely fears more than any other—the deadly criminal named Axel! Volume Thirteen of The Complete Little Orphan Annie reprints all daily and Sunday strips from January 12, 1947 to August 18, 1948.
THE COMPLETE LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE VOLUME THIRTEEN: SPIES AND COUNTERSPIES D AILY AND S UNDAY C OMICS 1947–1948
r r A
STORIES AND ART BY Harold
THE LIBRARY OF
MERICAN
Gray COMICS
EDITED AND DESIGNED BY Dean Mullaney ASSOCIATE EDITOR Bruce
Canwell ART DIRECTOR Lorraine Turner BIOGRAPHICAL TEXT BY Jeet Heer, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR RESTORATION ASSISTANT Joseph Ketel MARKETING DIRECTOR Beau Smith LibraryofAmericanComics.com
Thanks to Jackson Glassey for scanning, Richard Olson, John Province, Scott Cameron, Justin Eisinger, Alonzo Simon, and the San Francisco Comic Art Collection at the Ohio State University’s Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum.
ISBN: 978-1-63140-736-9 First Printing, September 2016 Distributed by Diamond Book Distributors 1-410-560-7100 IDW Publishing a Division of Idea and Design Works, LLC 2765 Truxtun Road • San Diego, CA 92106 idwpublishing.com Ted Adams, Chief Executive Officer/Publisher Greg Goldstein, Chief Operating Officer/President Robbie Robbins, EVP/Sr. Graphic Artist Chris Ryall, Chief Creative Officer/Editor-in-Chief Matthew Ruzicka, CPA, Chief Financial Officer Dirk Wood, VP of Marketing Lorelei Bunjes, VP of Digital Services Jeff Webber, VP of Licensing and Subsidiary Rights Jerry Bennington, VP of New Product Development Little Orphan Annie ® and © 2016 Tribune Content Agency, LLC. All rights reserved. The Library of American Comics is a trademark of Library of American Comics LLC. All rights reserved. Introduction © 2016 Jeet Heer. With the exception of artwork used for review purposes, none of the contents of this publication may be reprinted without the permission of Tribune Content Agency. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Tribune Content Agency. Printed in Korea.
CHAPTER ONE
ik TOK,
the world’s Greatest carto Onist 5
In WHICH ANnIe r
becomes part of the teaM that insures that the funnies aren’t just funny
r
gets her hackles up OVer a big, bleached blonde
r
And IS sacked by a strange pair of hands ! …
January 12, 1947 TIK TOK
14
January 13-15, 1947 TIK TOK
15
January 16-18, 1947 TIK TOK
16
January 19, 1947 TIK TOK
17