Disappointing in several ways. The first story has Annie, out on her own after escaping the Pinchpennys, teaming up with 'Uncle' Dan, a blind fiddler. They get trapped by a cheating manager, Chizzler; I suppose Annie's kind of stuck, but she doesn't even get suspicious for a long time and when she does she has no solution. She loses her voice and very nearly dies, but is secretly rescued by another con man. Then they have money - and very oddly for Annie, she goes on spending it casually. They'd have been out on the street except for something so weird it totally destroys my suspension of disbelief - 'Uncle' Dan turns out to be a lord and heir to a (very) small fortune. Annie refuses to go with him overseas - makes sense - but also refuses any money except enough for a train ticket back to Cosmic City. Which she promptly loses to a couple of pickpockets. Where did her street-smarts go? And then, she can't get a job because of a couple busybodies - but it never occurs to her to leave town, she just tries to duck the women. And fails, and is about to be put into a Home - and Daddy Warbucks comes over the hill and rescues her. Poof, all troubles gone. Very unrealistic, and even less like Annie - Gray was making her a puppet. Then a) another con, that gets Annie turned over to her 'real' parents, and b) Warbucks loses everything. Again. A good story then, with Annie up against mobsters and gangsters, doing a good job dealing with them and being frustrated at the end. Bill, Jake, & Wun Wey step in and solve it - Daddy's free but still broke. Then a close repetition of the story where he went blind - though he's not dumb enough to run away from Annie this time, so they both do better. Then they leave town, on foot and on the bum. That's where the book should have ended - or maybe a little further along, when they get a house for fixing it up. As it is, the book goes on just a bit longer, until one of Daddy's friends shows up...and it stops. Bah. Good in the series, only ( )

LOA is only slightly a guilty pleasure, long one of my favorite strips. Here, we start off with Annie on her own as she meets blind Dan Ballad, and starts singing for quarters to his fiddle playing. They attract the attention of an unscrupulous agent who binds them with a crooked contract. The two eventually end up on top, and soon afterwards Daddy Warbucks locates Annie, and all is well for a while. Then a couple purporting to be Annie's real parents claim custody of her and win.Later Annie and Warbucks come out on top against a bank robbery mob (the leader of whom is Annie's purported father) and some crooked politicians who had framed Warbucks. Warbuscks is free, but broke again, and their travels take them to an empty cabin that turns out to be owned by an old friend of Warbucks. This is where the mysterious Punjab makes his debut. ( )