Floyd Gottfrdson

American, 1905 - 1986

Birth-PlaceKaysville, UT

Death-PlaceMontrose, CA

BiographyArthur Floyd Gottfredson (May 5, 1905 – July 22, 1986) was an American cartoonist best known for his defining work on the Mickey Mouse comic strip. He has probably had the same impact on the Mickey Mouse comics as Carl Barks had on the Donald Duck comics. Two decades after his death, his memory was honored with the Disney Legends citation in 2003 and induction into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2006. Gottfredson was born into a large Mormon family in Kaysville, Utah. The three brothers and four sisters traced their roots to their great-grandfather who had immigrated to the United States from Denmark in the 1840s. As a child, Floyd severely injured his arm in a hunting accident. Housebound during a long recovery, he became interested in cartooning and took several cartooning correspondence courses. By the late 1920s, he was drawing cartoons for trade magazines and the Salt Lake City Telegram newspaper.

After achieving second place in a 1928 cartoon contest, the 23-year-old Gottfredson moved to Southern California with his wife and family, just before Christmas. At the time, there were seven major newspapers in the area, but he was unable to find work with any. One job he'd held in Utah, however, was as a movie projectionist and he found employment in that field in California. A year later, the movie theater where he'd been working was torn down, resulting in another job search and the profession of a lifetime. Walt Disney Productions hire Gottfredson as an apprentice animator and in-betweener on December 19, 1929. In April 1930 he started working on the four-month-old Mickey Mouse comic strip. It had originally been scripted by Walt Disney and drawn by Ub Iwerks who was succeeded by Win Smith. In May, Disney had Gottfredson assigned to the daily strip, promising it would be only a temporary arrangement until someone else could be found to take over. As it turned out, Gottfredson continued to produce the Mickey Mouse strips for the next 45 years.

Gottfredson's first daily strip was published in newspapers on his 25th birthday, May 5, 1930. On January 17, 1932 he began work on the newly inaugurated Mickey Mouse color Sunday strip which, in addition to the daily, he continued through mid-1938.

Originally, Gottfredson drew the strips alone, but in 1934 he pulled back to plotting the stories and doing the penciling. Scripts were written by Ted Osborne (1934–49), Merrill De Maris (1934–42), Dick Shaw (1942–43), Bill Walsh (1943–64), Roy Williams (1964) and Del Connell (1968–82).[2] There were a variety of inkers, including Al Taliaferro in the 1930s, until Gottfredson returned to inking the strips himself in 1943.

From the beginning, the strips were parts of long continuing stories. These introduced characters such as Eli Squinch; Mickey's nephews, Morty and Ferdie Fieldmouse; Detective Casey, Chief O'Hara and the Phantom Blot. The stories were always untitled. Titles were usually assigned later, when the strips or pages were reprinted in picture-books or comic books, which the artists had no influence on. For the sake of a better overview, these reprint titles are commonly used today. Starting in 1955, Gottfredson and writer Bill Walsh were instructed to drop the storylines and do only daily gags.

Gottfredson continued illustrating the daily strip until he retired on October 1, 1975. His last one was published on November 15 and his last Sunday strip on September 19, 1976.

REFERENCES

Disney Legends: Floyd Gottfredson
A Floyd Gottfredson Tribute Page
Floyd Gottfredson (A Biography by David Gerstein)
Floyd Gottfredson (I.N.D.U.C.K.S. Creator Entry)

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