Annie’s Unending Cliffhanger
Damn, the old kid’s gone. And she’s taken the papers with her!
Last Sunday marked the end of the classic comic strip, Little Orphan Annie. That’s sad, but that sort of thing has been going on for a long time now and it was inevitable,
despite some first-rate work on the feature by Jay Maeder, Jay Maeder and artists Andrew Pepoy, Alan Kupperberg and Ted Slampyak. Ignobly, the syndicate ended Annie in mid-story.
Newspaper comic strips were invented for one reason and one reason alone: to give the paper a competitive edge. If you were a New Yorker and you preferred Joe Palooka and Li’l Abner to Dick Tracy and Orphan Annie, chances were you bought the New York Daily Mirror instead of the New York Daily News.
The pompous New York Times turned not having comic strips into a virtue, but in fact at the time they could not afford to color presses needed to compete with Pulitzer and Hearst.
Today there is no such thing as newspaper competition:
most towns are lucky to have one daily paper, and most all papers carry the
exact same comics. With circulation zeroing in on zero, publishers are cutting back and, since they no longer need comics to compete, they’re vaporizing.
Ironically, we live in a time when virtually every major, important newspaper comic strip is being anthologized in hardcover and is readily available at the big-box bookstores. Without the newspaper comic strip
we wouldn’t have the comic book, and without the comic book I would have had to get a real job.
So goodbye, Annie and friends. And thank you.
ComicMix
editor-in-Chief Mike Gold performs a weekly two-hour Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind ass-kicking music and blather radio show on The Point every Sunday at 7:00 PM Eastern, replayed three times during the week (check the website for times). Likewise, his Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind political and cultural rants pop up each and every day at the same venue.
Can’t say i miss Annie – i never did care much for it (at least once i turned thirteen or so).
But i agree with you on the implications.
Our local paper doesn’t carry even the C level comics. So I’ve not seen any of the better stuff in a decade. But I do enjoy seeing the return of opinion to ComicMix.
Can't say i miss Annie – i never did care much for it (at least once i turned thirteen or so).But i agree with you on the implications.
Our local paper doesn't carry even the C level comics. So I've not seen any of the better stuff in a decade. But I do enjoy seeing the return of opinion to ComicMix.
I stopped relying on newspapers for comic strips when I found the Internet. It is a shame TMS never figured out an Internet model similar to King Features also promoting their classic strips.
I stopped relying on newspapers for comic strips when I found the Internet. It is a shame TMS never figured out an Internet model similar to King Features also promoting their classic strips.
So, will an online or print publisher pick up the slack and finish Annie’s last story? This is sort of like the situation on TV, where a long standing sit-com or drama gets canceled without notice and the writers and actors have no chance to wrap things up and give the show a proper “Good-bye” episode.
“Annie” the musical is scheduled for an update and Broadway revival in 2012. Wouldn’t the stage producers, who are investing millions into this, want to keep Annie the Comic alive just a bit longer? They should at least try to see the comic come to some kind of dignified conclusion. I would think that having Annie the Comic just fading into obscurity mid-story would not be good for “the Brand.” Seriously, how much could it cost?
One might think so, Russ. However… Back when they were casting for a new creative crew, I met with TMS out in Chicago. I was informed the producers of Annie the play stated unequivocally that the presence of an Annie newspaper strip had and would have no impact on ticket sales whatsoever. And these statements were made at a time when the strip had at least twice as many papers (domestically) and probably twice the present readership. Accurate or not, that’s what TMS believed at the time and I have no doubt what they believe today.Rumor has it Dick Tracy won’t survive New Year’s.But yes, I am aware of efforts being made to keep these properties alive in other comics media.
So, will an online or print publisher pick up the slack and finish Annie's last story? This is sort of like the situation on TV, where a long standing sit-com or drama gets canceled without notice and the writers and actors have no chance to wrap things up and give the show a proper "Good-bye" episode."Annie" the musical is scheduled for an update and Broadway revival in 2012. Wouldn't the stage producers, who are investing millions into this, want to keep Annie the Comic alive just a bit longer? They should at least try to see the comic come to some kind of dignified conclusion. I would think that having Annie the Comic just fading into obscurity mid-story would not be good for "the Brand." Seriously, how much could it cost?
One might think so, Russ. However… Back when they were casting for a new creative crew, I met with TMS out in Chicago. I was informed the producers of Annie the play stated unequivocally that the presence of an Annie newspaper strip had and would have no impact on ticket sales whatsoever. And these statements were made at a time when the strip had at least twice as many papers (domestically) and probably twice the present readership. Accurate or not, that's what TMS believed at the time and I have no doubt what they believe today.Rumor has it Dick Tracy won't survive New Year's.But yes, I am aware of efforts being made to keep these properties alive in other comics media.
Is it just me, or did the finale remind anyone else of the last few chapters of Thomas Harris’s Hannibal?
Is it just me, or did the finale remind anyone else of the last few chapters of Thomas Harris's Hannibal?