Little Orphan Annie, Volume 7: The Omnipotent Mr. Am!, 1936-1938

Little Orphan Annie: The Complete Daily Comics #7

by Harold Gray

Introducing two of the strip's most incredible characters: The Asp -- who has sometimes been likened to the Grim Reaper -- and Mr. Am -- who has been said might be a representation of the Almighty. Harold Gray is at the top of his game as he also introduces the mysterious Shanghai Peg and the frightening villain Boris Sirob, who actually kills both "Daddy" Warbucks and The Asp. "Daddy" dead? Wait until you read this one! Includes all dailies and color Sundays from October 1, 1936 through June 8, 1938.-The Library of American Comics is the world's #1 publisher of classic newspaper comic strips, with 14 Eisner Award nominations and three wins for best book. LOAC has become "the gold standard for archival comic strip reprints...The research and articles provide insight and context, and most importantly the glorious reproduction of the material has preserved these strips for those who knew them and offers a new gateway to adventure for those discovering them for the first time." - Scoop

Genres: Comic Strips

288 pages, Hardcover

First published September 13, 2011

About the author

Harold Lincoln Gray was an American newspaper artist and cartoonist.

Gray grew up on a farm near the small town of Chebanse, Illinois. He graduated from Purdue University with a degree in engineering, but as an artist, he was largely self-taught. A former letterer for Sidney Smith on The Gumps, he came up with a strip idea in 1924 for Little Orphan Otto. The title was quickly altered by Chicago Tribune editor Joseph Medill Patterson to Little Orphan Annie.
By the 1930s this strip had evolved from a crudely-drawn melodrama to a crisply rendered atmospheric story with novelistic plot threads. The dialogue consisted mainly of meditations on Gray's own deeply conservative political philosophy.
Gray sometimes ghosted Little Joe (1933-72), the strip by his assistant (and cousin) Ed Leffingwell which was continued by Ed's brother Robert. Maw Green, a spin-off of Annie was published as a topper to Little Orphan Annie. It mixed vaudeville timing with the same deeply conservative attitudes as Annie.
Harold Gray was a charter member of Lombard Masonic Lodge #1098, A.F. & A.M. in 1923.

Reviews

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story of the Widow Alden, Rose Chance, Jack Smith, and Shanghai Leg is another favorite story of mine.

[J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another grand entry in this series of Little Orphan Annie comic. The inclusion of all the daily and Sunday strips puts this way above any earlier collections. The introduction and background information is top notch and does a good job pointing out Harold Grays increasingly hard republican viewpoints and preaching. Very timely today, one might say. Mr. Am's defense of slavery on 5/5/37 is perhaps the most egregious example of this and should leave one just shaking their head.

The introduction also points out the increasing level of violence in the strip. Now, for anyone who grew up in the 50's and 60's reading Annie, this is what we're looking for. We're not to the level of whole boatloads of baddies being eaten by giant crocodiles or being "sent to see the Genies" by Punjab but there some classic deaths in this book. The last long story is considered one of Gray's finest and will conclude in the next volume.
"Gee whiskers, it's good!"
"Arf".. says Sandy.

[Dominick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting volume. I'm ambivalent about the swing into the overtly supernatural (Mr Am, ghosts), and Gray's idea that TV seems to be able to show you anything you want as long as you have a monitor, without a camera on the other end, is just bizarre (though, to give him credit, TV proper didn't even exist yet when he wrote the story), but the long, complex narrative that is still unfolding as the volume ends--Annie adopted again by a poor, salt of the earth widow woman, after rescuing an abandoned young mother, then befriending a rough truck company manager and crusty peg-leg tramp, with a thirty-year-old murder lurking behind the narrative, is sterling stuff. Can't wait to read the rest of it in the next volume.