Comics: Tougher than Hell With a Heart of Gold

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In the Cave. Annie got her start on a summer day in 1906 when a youthful Harold Gray, pulling morning glories from the family cornfield near Chebanse, III., decided that there must be an easier living. He had been scrawling pictures as a hobby from childhood. So it was only natural that after graduating from Purdue in 1917 he should head for Chicago and talk his way into the art department of the Chicago Tribune. There, between lettering stints for the Tribune comic strip, The Gumps, Gray came up with a strip idea of his own, centered around a boy named Little Orphant Otto. With some misgivings, the artist presented Otto to Joseph Medill Patterson, then editor of the Tribune and an expert on the viability of comic strips. "The kid looks like a pansy, doesn't he?" said Gray. "Sure does," agreed Patterson. "Why don't you put a skirt on him?" Thus was Annie born.

Now 70, Gray divides his time between a home in Westport, Conn., and another in La Jolla, Calif. Annie thoroughly dominates his life, as she has for four decades. He says that he spends up to 70 hours a week drafting six daily strips and one for Sunday. Outside of transcontinental trips to take the pulse of U.S. conservatism, he professes no other compelling interests in life.

Age has banked Gray's polemic fire, and consequently Annie's too. "She's staying clean out of politics this year," said Gray last week. "Boy, this is murder! You'll get cut no matter which side you're on." Until after the November election, Artist Gray plans to put Annie in a cave. But she is in no real danger. Any girl that can pass 40 without so much as a wrinkle is obviously destined to live forever.