Belinda, aka Belinda Blue-Eyes, was a newspaper comic strip

Comic strip

A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

 created in 1936 by the cartoonist Steve Dowling (1904-1986) and scripted by Bill Connor. It was published in the UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 newspaper Daily Mirror.

In The Penguin Book of Comics, George Perry and Alan Aldridge wrote, "Belinda Blue Eyes was a perpetual waif, a British counterpart to the transatlantic Little Orphan Annie

Little Orphan Annie

Little Orphan Annie was a daily American comic strip created by Harold Gray and syndicated by Tribune Media Services. The strip took its name from the 1885 poem "Little Orphant Annie" by James Whitcomb Riley, and made its debut on August 5, 1924 in the New York Daily News...

. Over the years she grew slowly. By 1959 when the strip ended, she had just about reached the stage when she needed a bra."

In 1943, Tony Royle took over as the artist. During World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, the title was shortened to Belinda. Royle continued to draw the strip with writer Don Freeman until the end of its run on 17 October 1959. Royle retired to Badsey in Worcestershire, England, where he died March 1966.