Goodbye, Annie

That’s it? What a weird-ass spot to wrap things up. (Not exactly Broadway-friendly either!)

That IS bizarre, but Annie’s always done the cliffhanger serial stuff, I gather.

Perhaps one day she, like Arthur, shall rise again.

To, uh, defend England in its time of greatest need. Or something :)

If you’re looking at the strip from a purely narrative viewpoint, yes, it is an odd ending. But from a meta context, very appropriate.

I had no idea Annie was still being published.

here’s hoping this is just the beginning for the closing down of page clogging legacy strips

i never got this strip. the talky dialogue, the button eyes… give me Tin Tin.

I’ve never dug into much archival material, but I loved reading *about* the strip in that book R.C. Harvey wrote about comic strips. He really whet my appetite for the classic stuff and led me to find Popeye, Wash Tubbs & Captain Easy, lots of other cool stuff.

I remember being fascinated with Harold Gray’s gloomy, hatched artwork. I gather it was a big influence on Crumb.

As to that last strip…

I’m not crazy about the art, but that landscape shot of the deserted street is quite lovely. I also like the darker element of this war criminal guy. Any strip that’s got the dialogue “I have slaughtered many!” ain’t all bad.

The more I think about it, the more I like it. Kinda wish I’d seen the last few years to see what they were doing with the character. Will have to peek around online…

Hey, Goddard, what’re the strips you like in the newspapers right now?

Hmm. Not in either of our local papers, but I have to admit, that one little strip did evoke some interest. A not-too-jarring updating of her look and it seems to read, in that little snippet, very much like the classics I’ve just been re-reading. I feel like I may have missed out in the last few years.

Am I just REALLY confused, or are Daddy Warbuck’s fingernails on the fronts of his fingers? Isn’t that hand being shown palm side up?

@Karen – That’s Daddy Warbucks pressing his hand up against the fourth wall, trying to see all the people who are still reading their adventures…

This version of the Annie comic strips got reinvigorated when the play and movie came out. Suddenly the NY Daily News started carrying it and that’s how I found out about it. I always thought it’d been canceled before and then revived as a tie-in to the movie and play. Hopefully it’ll come back someday in something other than a post-modernist match-up with other canceled newspaper comic strips…

The most recent version started in 2000.

I read it in the NY Daily News, and enjoyed the stories. The update worked, but it’s a continuity strip, and feature editors are loath to run them, as they are extremely hard to cancel.

Let the fan fiction begin…

Looking forward to the Annie/Boondocks crossover!

Actually, I’ve read that the comic will continue online. It’s only ending in the newspapers.

Ted’s my favorite comics artist — good luck, and here’s to greener pastures!

dave, the only thing that i find myself really looking forward to these days is Mutts, but i do enjoy Rose is Rose and Baby Blues as well.

i don’t get Zippy around here and Perry Bible Fellowship isn’t around any more. but i like those as well.

i suspect i’d like Zits more if it wasn’t perpetually set in 1993.

Doonesbury is as strong as ever.

The best comic strip currently being published:
9 Chickweed Lane by Brooke McEldowney (available on Comics dot com).

It’s got humor, it’s got steamy sex (check out May 22nd!), it’s got unique characters, heart, ongoing storylines, realistic gay characters, and lots of romance.

Other strips of note:
Lio
Heart of the City
(both drawn by the same person!)
Rose is a Rose
(th)ink
Evil, Inc.
Girls With Slingshots
Mutts

I honestly haven’t read newspaper strips in years, save the occasional reprint of Peanuts, Popeye or Prince Valiant (alliteration out of nowhere!), but Mutts was one of the few I liked last time I did.

I like stuff with incidental humor along the way, not just a final panel punchline. I’d love to see someone pull off a suspense or action story with the form, but with some sly dialogue, a quirky style, or a touch of the underground. I could almost see an Annie revival pulling this off.

Love Perry Bible Fellowship, the internet generation’s Far Side. I that was kinda/sorta/maybe back, but the first strip wasn’t great.

Good choices, Torsten!

How about ‘The Knight Life’ by the same person as (th)ink?

Not a fan of ‘Pearls Before Swine’? (IMHO< the most consistently funny strip today)

I like The Knight Llife, and his K Chronicles is genius. KL is a strip on my comics.com page, but near the bottom. Not one I’d stick on my fridge.
(On my fridge: Bizzaro (explaining how a humor strip works) , Liberty Meadows (how to draw a dachshund), Speed Bump (words never heard in Nebraska))

Same with Pearls, Argyle Sweater, Get Fuzzy. Good bathroom reading.

Two more:
Retail (Dilbert in a department store!)
Cul De Sac

It’s matured, but search out any collections of Ernie/Piranha Club. Very funny, in a very surreal way!

Meanwhile, Fantagraphics is collecting Nancy and (finally?) Pogo.

Old cartoons, no matter how well drawn or written, need to be moved off the comics pages to make room for the newest upcoming and current talent that’s out there. Let old cartoons live on through anthologies and reprinted books. The same thing for strips like Peanuts and others. They were all great….and I emphasize “WERE”.