Irwin Hasen | 'Dondi' cocreator, 96

Irwin Hasen, 96, who helped create the comic strip Dondi and drew for its three-decade run as a newspaper comic, died Friday, in New York of heart failure.

Mr. Hasen worked on superhero comic books starring Wonder Woman, the Green Lantern, and others, but Dondi, a pint-size war orphan, needed no greater powers than gumption and wide-eyed innocence to charm a nation.

At its height, Dondi was featured in more than 100 newspapers.

Just as another orphan, Annie, caught the country's attention during the Depression, the story of Dondi's rescue from war-torn Europe by GIs resonated with postwar America.

- L.A. Times