Harold Gray (1894–1968)

Several solid stories - some of them blend into one another, so it's kind of hard to say how many. The first one is the end of the story that started in the last volume, about Abigail and Rose and Jack and Shanghai Pete. Ace Chance, Rose's husband, showed up at the end of the last book - in this book, he gets turned from a lazy, gambling parasite into a good man. And then a very good one. Happy ending, more or less, though not a cheerful one exactly. Though Shanghai's joke with the well is show more excellent. Then Annie nearly gets kidnapped by a new bad guy, Axel, and she's back on the road and dodging him. A car accident puts her with a farm family, the Buckles. She and Sandy make a good home there...until Axel comes back and this time is successful in hauling Annie off to his stronghold, intending to ransom her to Warbucks. Annie finds an unexpected ally in the stronghold, and Warbucks and his allies are alerted by Axel's ransom note - infiltration and assault follow, with Annie, Warbucks, and her ally Dona Dolores trapped in a cellar and slowly starving. Axel, unfortunately, gets away (he's tough! and smart). The prisoners are rescued and take a little rest before Warbucks has to head off to London - and for a change, he's planning to take Annie along. But Axel is back (he's a real bad penny!), and Annie and Sandy are thrown into the harbor as their ship sails. They're rescued by another couple, John and Jill Tecum; John is an honest lawyer stuck in a dead-end job, until a case comes up that he can't stomach and he quits and heads out on his own (well, with a partner). Then interesting things occur - John is honest, the mobster Nick Gatt is also honest (much to John's surprise and disbelief), but there aren't many others who are. Betrayals, plots, schemes abound as John wins a case that Nick Gatt makes run on rails, then is swept up in Nick's plans and receives everything he ever dreamed of as a lawyer. John is quite certain he's being set up for something... Then while all that is still going on, suddenly Annie is the target of a drive-by shooting - by Axel! The man's a pest. And the book ends, with all concerned certain that Axel has something planned and wants to make sure Annie doesn't tell anyone about him. Another cliffhanger - or one and a half, since the Tecum story is most definitely not concluded, but now there's the Axel complication. Fun, good stories - and very rich. Not just more violent, as the foreword discusses, but deeper characterization and more complex plots than most of the previous Annie stories. Very good. show less

Hmm. One good story – small town, Annie being a catalyst (though less so than the last – she’s helping around the edges rather than being the main cause of events). Junior Commandos again, though much more hobbled. And newspaper work, and a big mystery/scandal - that gets Annie in a very dangerous position. Still, I think this is the first time she's run out before things were dealt with, of her own free will - she didn't know the problem was handled as she was leaving. An odd show more interlude, with the Duke - and more murder. And this time it's Punjab who shows up at the last minute and rescues her. Yet another report of "Daddy"s death - admittedly, a little more reliable than most, but still. And Annie gets into a very bad position. Mrs. B-H is way over the top - a lot worse than others with a similar surface, that Annie's encountered. And again Annie runs leaving the villain behind, though this time the threat is basically to her, not to others. show less

Love it. Annie is great, and this one is more complete (and earlier) than any other book of her strips I've read. I liked the biographical sketches at the beginning - a little bit about who and what Harold Gray was, but the focus stayed on Annie. My one complaint is that the editors said that later Gray started including the Sundays in the continuity, and when he does they'll start including them (in later volumes); they included a few Sundays in this one, but not all of the continuity ones. show more There are a couple points where Annie goes through a major change in one day on a Sunday, and the next day finds her in a new position...she _says_ what happened, but that's not the same as seeing it. Definitely looking out for the next books in the series. They're enormous, heavy hardbacks, and expensive (I mostly buy paperbacks!) - but for this it's worth it.
Upon yet another reread - Lovely as always. Still wish they had the rest of the continuity Sundays. And I really wish this existed as an ebook - it's a huge and heavy object, show less

Yeah - I'm starting not to like Annie. Or perhaps it's Harold Gray. Four stories; the first one is (most of) Tik Tok the World's Greatest Cartoonist - if this is as autobiographical as the foreword thinks it is, Gray had serious self-esteem issues. Tik Tok is a braggart and a fool - I really can't tell if he's actually that stupid, about Pat and about his "friends", or if he's just scared to admit the truth. Or what. Annie is also a) pretty much a cipher - she does a lot of eye-rolling and show more "Oh bruthuuur"ing, but doesn't actually act, or even talk directly to Tik Tok. And the one time she really lights in to him about spending three times what he's hoping to make...he buys her some stuff and that makes her so happy she cries and stops bugging him. Sheesh! This story started in the last book and concludes here - in the usual way, her latest family disappears/dies/?. Annie's off wandering, fearing an attack (which has actually been dealt with - by Punjab, I suppose, big feet). She finds another family, small town this time (city, town, city, town...). The town's more or less under the thumb of a political boss, who takes what he wants, uses subtle (and not so subtle) threats to enforce it, and bribes and smarms most of the unthinking citizens into thinking he's a good guy. His opponent is Joe Christmas...yet another slightly mysterious, outsider, Christ figure man. There's a lot in this story about mob rule vs rule of law - a really heavy-handed MORAL, repeated over and over, with several scenes of mobs, including one where Annie's current "father" is part of one and regrets it afterward. Gaws, the political boss, gets really careless and stupid in trying to get rid of Joe; the moral is repeated, and Gaws manages to get dead (helped, admittedly, by Punjab. But not direct action). Oh yes, and Warbucks is back, directed to Annie by Mr. Am (who shows up only long enough to be a deus ex machina a couple times). Then a shortish story with Annie and Warbucks dealing with the takeover of a house that was apparently a secret headquarters for Warbucks. The takeover was masterminded by...oh bl**y, it's Axel again. And Warbucks is too good a man to actually kill an enemy, he'd rather leave him able to still attack. Warbucks claims he's just too busy to bother hating someone, but...serious change of personality, there. So Warbucks has to run off, leaving Annie to go to school - and unsurprisingly, Axel gets loose and tries to snatch her. So Annie goes running off again - and when she lands in a city that she knows Axel is in too, she cheerfully finds a place to settle down. Arrgh! Where's clever Annie? Talk about a personality change. Yet another sequence of Axel planning for a Day of Destruction, with lots of homegrown (or foreign? Max is called both) terrorists planning how there will be a "real democracy" with them on top. And again, Axel is sent off unharmed. Heck, he survives the attentions of a practiced murderer...a mere tramp steamer isn't going to hold him, especially one filled with his people. End.

I'm sorry, this isn't fun any more. Annie has completely lost her smarts - she's alternately a cipher and onlooker (she did almost nothing with Tik Tok, and was only a convenient hostage in the takeover) or a busybody and nuisance (she tells tales to start things happening, but doesn't actually act herself). She no longer remembers how to make a home on not much money (she _can_, but give her any money and she'll happily blow it on luxuries); she doesn't even remember how to run when an enemy is near. The messages are waaaaay too heavy-handed. And the stories are utterly repetitive - oh look, Annie's gone to a town and found a family. Next she'll go to a city and find a family. A magic man will show up - Am or someone else, or both. Axel will show up and chase her, but she'll get away; Warbucks will be declared dead and return. Again. And again. And again. I'm not going to bother to buy any more of these books. I'd still like to read them - find them in a library, maybe - but they're not worth my money any more. show less