The Little Orphan Annie newspaper strip is finally ending, after 86 years. Only 20 newspapers currently carry the strip. Comic Riffs interviews Tribune Media Service's vice president of licensing about the conclusion of the strip.

MC: Is there a realistic chance "Annie" would ever be resuscitated as a comic strip?

ST: If you mean as a print newspaper comic strip, there is a very, very slim chance, depending on how newspapers refashion themselves over the next few years. Not terribly likely, but nothing is out of the realm of possibility.

As a sequential visual story-telling property in mobile, eReader/iPad and other yet-to-be conceived electronic channels, I would pump up the probability considerably that we'll see new products. Remember, just a few years ago, Iron Man was a second-tier vintage comic book known only to fanboys and fangirls (and boomers) — and Sherlock Holmes and Alice in Wonderland were tired and putatively "done-to-death" classics without much relevance to contemporary audiences. Just look at them now!