 Kurtzman recruited his long @-@ time collaborator Will Elder to work on the strip 's illustrations . He suggested to Elder an " outlineless " , painted style , then thought the strip would be better suited by an India inked , outlined comic book style with flat color behind it . Hefner , whose opinion prevailed , preferred the more difficult , fully painted , outlineless look . Kurtzman 's suggestions for the feature 's name included The Perils of Zelda , The Perils of Irma , and Little Mary Mixup ; he settled on Little Annie Fanny , its title and logo a parody of Harold Gray 's Little Orphan Annie . The cartoonist began submitting story ideas for the multi @-@ page comic strip to Hefner for approval . Over the twenty @-@ six years he wrote the character , he was allowed ( with Playboy 's substantial budget ) to travel for research , photography , and sketching . He followed this with a preliminary script for Hefner , who revised it . Kurtzman then worked out the story 's composition , pacing , and action in thumbnail drawings and pencil roughs of each page of the comic , followed by larger , more @-@ detailed layouts on translucent vellum specifying lighting , color , and speech balloon placement . These also required Hefner 's approval — a typical two- to seven @-@ page episode would take as many as nine pages of layout . Kurtzman then discussed the layout with Elder , who drove from his home in New Jersey to Kurtzman 's in New York . Kurtzman acted out every detail of the strip ; according to Elder , " He would change his voice and take on the characteristics of each role ... We 'd crack each other up and fall down laughing . " This gave Elder what he needed to create the penciling , including " eye pops " ( background gags worked into blank areas of Kurtzman 's layout ; Hefner rejected many , so Elder created as many as possible ) and the final rendering . Elder painted in oil , tempera , and watercolor , never using ink . Beginning with a white illustration board , Elder explained he would " pile on " his oil paint , light colors over dark , then apply tempera , then layer several watercolor washes to give Annie luminous tones . " The colors were like gems to me , " he said . " I worked very hard to give them iridescence . " The work was labor @-@ intensive and deadlines were often difficult to meet , so other artists , including Russ Heath , Arnold Roth , Jack Davis , Al Jaffee , Frank Frazetta , and Paul Coker , were occasionally enlisted to help finish the art . Jaffee , a childhood friend of Elder , said about the experience : " Little Annie Fannie was the most unique , lavishly produced cartoon cum illustration feature ever . Each panel was a miniature masterpiece that Willie glazed and re @-@ glazed in brilliant watercolor until he reached the level of 3 @-@ D @-@ like translucence that he wanted . I know from first @-@ hand experience what went into this project . " Letterers inked the dialog balloons before Kurtzman cleaned and submitted the finished work . Little Annie Fanny , Playboy 's first comic strip , was the first multi @-@ page comics feature in a major American magazine . 
