The Complete Little Orphan Annie in stores June 11

An IDW Library of American Comics Imprint.

Great news for fans of classic comic strips: IDW is publishing a deluxe hardcover series collecting Harold Gray's timeless newspaper strip, Little Orphan Annie.  It contains more than 1000 comics and the first volume will be released in stores June 11.

An exciting addition to The Library of American Comics, an imprint of IDW Publishing, The Complete Little Orphan Annie, Vol. 1 is edited and designed by Dean Mullaney, who as founder of Eclipse Comics in 1977 became a leader of the 1980s indie comics movement. Since then, Mullaney has become a specialist in restoring and re-presenting classic American comic strips. His work on The Complete Terry and The Pirates has earned him a 2008 Eisner Award nomination.

This first volume of The Complete Little Orphan Annie—"Will Tomorrow Ever Come?"—starts at the beginning in 1924, and includes the first nine complete stories, until the end of 1927.  "It's through the incredible trials and tribulations of these first three years," Mullaney says, "that Annie emerges as the kid with a heart of gold and a quick left hook."

The book also contains the first-ever detailed look at creator Harold Gray by noted comics scholar Jeet Heer. With unprecedented access to the Harold Gray Archives at Boston University, nearly every strip in the book has been reproduced from its original artwork or syndicate proof. Little Orphan Annie never looked so good.

Little Orphan Annie has become a cultural icon—in both her redheaded, blank-eyed appearance, and as the embodiment of American individuality, spunk, and self-reliance. Even those who've never read the comic strip are keenly aware of the plucky orphan, her loveable mutt Sandy, and her adoptive benefactor, Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks through the Broadway play, the hit movie, and the song "Tomorrow," made famous by both.

Harold Gray said of his famous character, "Life to her was deadly serious. She had to be hard to survive, and she meant to survive."

"With Dick Tracy, Terry & the Pirates and Little Orphan Annie, IDW has the crown jewels of the world famous Chicago Tribune comics section, making the California-based company a major player in what has become a new golden age of comic strip reprints," says ICv2.

Harold Gray was born in 1894 in Kankee, Illinois, and began his cartooning career as an assistant to Sydney Smith, creator of the famously successful strip, The Gumps. Gray wrote and illustrated Little Orphan Annie from 1924 until his death in 1968.