Little Orphan
Annie debuted on August 5, 1924 in but a single newspaper.
Over the next 44 years. Annie became 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’s 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.
Little Orphan Annie Vol. 1: 1924-1927
Will Tomorrow Ever
Come?
by Harold Gray
Edited & Designed by Dean Mullaney, Essay by Jeet
Heer.
It's through the trials and tribulations of these first three years that Annie emerges as the kid with a heart of gold and a quick left hook. In these stories, we meet the poor little orphan, see her rescue Sandy from torture by a gang of bullies, and encounter her once and future "Daddy" — billionaire Oliver Warbucks.
Oversized 11" x 8.5"
hardcover-with-dustjacket, 384 pp. with index, $39.99.
ISBN: 978-1-60010-140-3.
Little Orphan Annie Vol. 2: 1927-1929
The Darkest Hour Is
Just Before Dawn
by Harold Gray
Edited & Designed by Dean Mullaney, Essay by Jeet
Heer.
America's spunkiest kid stands for fair play as she gives the scoundrels and rats their just desserts! Little Orphan Annie-the original female comics hero-takes on chiseling business men and a gang of thieves, armed only with her sharp wit and mean left hook. Then she helps her surrogate parents by nursing "Daddy" Warbucks to health and helping save the Silos' family farm.
Oversized 11" x 8.5"
hardcover-with-dustjacket, 320 pp. with index, $39.99.
ISBN: 978-1-60010-197-7.
Little Orphan Annie Vol. 3: 1929-1931
And a Blind Man
Shall Lead Them
by Harold Gray,
Edited & Designed by Dean Mullaney, Essay by Jeet Heer
Introduction by Bruce Canwell.
Now with Sundays in color for the first time in more than 75 years. The action never stops as Annie gets shipwrecked with Spike Marlin. Then the Depression and rival businessmen wreck "Daddy" Warbucks's empire, leaving him broke and ruined. Annie gets a job, while "Daddy" finds work as a truck driver. But a near fatal accident leaves him...well, we don't want to give away the plot! Let's just say that with Flop-House Bill at his side, "Daddy" tries to claw his way back to the top!
Oversized 11" x 8.5"
full-color hardcover-with-dustjacket, 348 pp. with index,
$39.99. ISBN: 978-1-60010-406-0.
Little Orphan Annie Vol. 4: 1932-1933
A House Divided (or
Will Fate Trick Trixie?)
by Harold Gray
Edited & Designed by Dean Mullaney, Essay by Jeet
Heer
"Daddy" Warbucks takes a new wife, Annie's in the clutches of the Sisters of Suppression, and the spunkiest kid in America is destined for adventures in Cosmic City. Containing every daily and Sunday strip from January, 1932 through July, 1933, with the dailies printed directly from Harold Gary's original artwork.
Oversized 11" x 8.5" full
color hardcover-with-dustjacket, 276 pp. with index,
$49.99. ISBN: 978-1-60010-445-9.
Little Orphan Annie Vol. 5: 1933-1935
The One-Way Road to
Justice
by Harold Gray
Edited & Designed by Dean Mullaney, Essay by Jeet
Heer.
Together with the blind fiddler, "Uncle" Dan, Annie square off against the Chizzler, then embarks on her first novel-length adventure. In a story lasting nearly a full year, Annie's supposed "real" parents-Boris and Libby Bleek, leaders of the criminal Ghost Gang-gain legal custody of her, while "Daddy" Warbucks is hounded into jail by the unscrupulous politician, Phil O. Bluster. "The One-Way "Road to Justice" leaves a penniless Annie and "Daddy" and on the bum amidst the Great Depression. Containing every daily and color Sunday strip from July 1933 through February 1935, with the dailies printed directly from Harold Gary's original artwork.
Oversized 11" x 8.5"
full-color hardcover-with-dustjacket, 280 pp with index,
$49.99. ISBN: 978-1-60010-580-7.
Born in Kankakee, Illinois in 1894, Harold Gray 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 from 1924 until his death in 1968.
"Check out The
Complete Little Orphan Annie by Harold Gray. The blank-eyed
orphan was far grittier and moving than the saccharine Annie you
know from the damn musical. [It] started in 1924 in a world
chillingly like ours: crawling with cake-eaters, greedy bankers and
international con men who exploit the hardscrabble working stiffs
Annie hangs with when her "Daddy" isn't around to protect her. The
cartoonist, a tightlipped Midwestern Dickens, pushes the virtues of
honesty, pluck, and hard work in adventures that can melt the heart
of even hard-boiled cynics like I pretend to be."
-Art Spiegelman, thedailybeast.com
"The Complete
Little Orphan Annie has raised the bar against which such
compilations will be judged. The research, the articles providing
insight and context, and most importantly the glorious reproduction
of the material have preserved these strips for those who knew them
and offers a new gateway to adventure for those discovering them
for the first time. The Sunday pages are perhaps the truest color
reproductions of this sort of early work.... Reading this book is
like diving into history, without the musty smell.
-Scoop
"In 1924, Gray
offered Little Orphan Annie as a radical departure-a serious, often
bleak drama.... This maiden volume gives us a chance to reappraise
Gray, one of the most controversial cartoonists of his
generation-and, via his career, American conservatism. For as
modern conservatism struggles to define itself...Gray's strip about
a little orphan girl in a cold, cruel world is the story of where
that movement, and modern graphic literature, began."
-Ben Schwartz, Book Forum