Cartoon Annie, and slightly enhanced version. You be the judge.

Annie’s eyes

creeped us out

Jeepers Creepers, couldn’t somebody have given that kid some peepers?

You have to wonder how many newspaper readers just couldn’t get past the vacant, zombie-like stare of the people who inhabited the comic-page world of Little Orphan Annie.

First created in 1924, the strip endured through 86 years and four artists, all of whom stuck with Harold Gray’s vision of a pupil-less little girl with a doll and a dog, and an adopted father named Daddy Warbucks — all apparently blind.

The strip came to an end last Sunday after the number of newspapers carrying it dwindled to 20.

Annie escaped a tough life in an orphanage and made her way in the world by “pluck, hard work and a cheery disposition,” and without eyeballs.

For generations, she channeled an old and admirable American trait first popularized by the Horatio Alger novels of the late 1800s.

Alger wrote compelling books about poor boys who escaped poverty through hard work and clean living. They usually started as newsboys, peddlers and shoe blacks, and they invariably worked their way up to become titans of industry.

Myth or reality, the Horatio Alger novels and comic strips such as Little Orphan Annie instilled an ethic of self-reliance, thrift, work and optimism that served generations of Americans well.

Annie always struggled to stay current. While her dress, age and costumes never changed, the plot lines were often topical.

In the final strip, she is left in the unsavory hands of the “Butcher of the Balkans,” as Warbucks urges the FBI and Interpol to find her.

“And this is where we leave our Annie. For Now —”  said the last line of the last panel, leaving open the faint possibility of Annie’s return.

Perhaps, the next time, with eyeballs intact.