'Annie' Comic Strip to Say Goodbye to Newspapers

Looks like the sun will come out for just a little bit longer, but then it’ll be time to say goodbye.

Tribune Media Services has announced that after 80 years on comic pages, the “Little Orphan Annie” strip will no longer run in newspapers. The final strip on is set to appear on June 13.

"It's kind of painful. It's almost like mourning the loss of a friend," cartoonist Ted Slampyak told New York’s Daily News, one of the few papers that still run the strip. Annie will remain a licensed entity of TMS, and will continue to appear in other forms.  

“Little Orphan Annie,” at its beginnings a very metropolitan-centered comic, made its debut on Aug. 5, 1924 in the Daily News. Cartoonist Harold Gray, Annie’s creator, drew her until his death in 1968.

Several incarnations followed, including a radio series in 1930 (referenced in the perennial film “A Christmas Story”), a smash Broadway show in 1977, and a film adaptation in 1982.