News In Brief

Annie leaves print to become full-time digital orphan

Melissa Kaplan Jun 14, 2010

After 85 years, Annie’s taking her hard-knock life out of the newspaper game. Tribune Media Services, which owns the comic, is pulling the plug on her current incarnation to repackage her for a new media world. Tribune hopes to reach a broader, more global audience with a digital approach, producing the franchise for TV, film and Web.

New generation fans will unfortunately miss out on the time-honored tradition of giving Annie pupils.

[

]()

Annie was the brain-orphan-child of cartoonist Harold Gray, who created the 9-year-old, red-haired soon-to-be icon in 1924 with two rules: She could never grow any older, and she could never reach a “happy ending”. Which never seemed to dampen her spirit or success. The young heroine has battled sinister villains from all eras of her comic life, from bad bankers to gangsters to Nazis. Annie has graced the radio waves, Broadway stage and silver screen, and still managed never to break child labor laws.

Here’s a classic to tide you over til you see her reappear in new adventures online:

There’s a lot happening in the world.  Through it all, Marketplace is here for you. 

You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible. 

Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.