Floyd Gottfredson

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Floyd Gottfredson
Montrose, California, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Area(s)Artist, writer
Notable works
Mickey Mouse comic strip
AwardsInkpot Award (1983)[2]

Arthur Floyd Gottfredson (May 5, 1905 – July 22, 1986) was an American cartoonist best known for his defining work on the Mickey Mouse comic strip, which he worked on from 1930 until his retirement in 1975. His contribution to Mickey Mouse comics is comparable to Carl Barks's on the Donald Duck comics. 17 years after his death, his memory was honored with the Disney Legends award in 2003[3] and induction into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2006.[4]

Biography

Early life and career

Gottfredson was born into a large family of

correspondence courses. Because of his injury, Gottfredson had to draw using his whole arm. In 1926, he took the Federal Schools of Illustrating and Cartooning's correspondence course, and by the late 1920s, he was drawing cartoons for trade magazines and the Salt Lake City Telegram newspaper.[5]

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 had been working was torn down, resulting in another job search. On a whim, Gottfredson inquired at Disney studios, which hired him the same day.[5]

Mickey Mouse

Walt Disney Productions hired 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 daily comic strip.[6] It had originally been scripted by Walt Disney and drawn by Ub Iwerks who was succeeded by Win Smith. Iwerks later tried to hire Gottfredson at his studio after the former had left Disney, but Roy Disney refused to allow Gottfredson out of his contract.[7] In May, Win Smith refused to write the strip,[8] and Disney assigned Gottfredson to it, promising it would be only a temporary arrangement until someone else could be found to take over. Gottfredson continued to produce the Mickey Mouse strips for the next 45 years.[5]

Gottfredson's first daily strip was published in newspapers on his 25th birthday, May 5, 1930.[5] In January 1932, he began work on the newly inaugurated Mickey Mouse color Sunday strip which, in addition to the daily, he continued through mid-1938.[9] Gottfredson headed the comics department at Disney from 1930 to 1946,[3] and was replaced by Frank Reilly.[7]

Originally, Gottfredson wrote and drew the Mickey Mouse strip alone, but in 1932, he pulled back to plotting the stories and doing the

Webb Smith (1932–33), Ted Osborne (1933–38), Merrill De Maris (1933–42), Dick Shaw (1942–43), Bill Walsh (1943–64), Roy Williams (1962-69) and Del Connell (1968–88).[10] Even so, Gottfredson always worked closely with his writers, and would often suggest changes in the scripts whenever he thought it would improve a story.[11] There were a variety of inkers on the strip through the years; inkers for the Sunday strips included Al Taliaferro and Ted Thwaites in the 1930s, and Manuel Gonzales until 1981; Taliaferro also inked daily strips.[7] Gottfredson returned to inking daily strips himself in 1947.[10]

From the beginning, the strips were parts of long continuing stories. These introduced characters such as the

Sylvester Shyster, who were also introduced in the comic.[7] Gottfredson plotted the continuities until Bill Walsh started writing the strip in 1943.[3] 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.[7] Starting in the 1950s, Gottfredson and writer Bill Walsh were instructed to drop the storylines and do only daily gags.[12] Gottfredson continued illustrating the daily strip until he retired on October 1, 1975.[7]

Animation critic

Mormon upbringing and his unflaggingly positive outlook made him the perfect keeper for this icon. Never complaining, chocking back his hurts... this is the ethic he brought to Mickey. Gottfredson's mouse combines the virtues of a good citizen and a good soldier."[6]
: 47 

Reprints and compilations

Gottfredson's Mickey strips were often collected in the 1930s and 1940s.

Big Little Book series based most of its Mickey volumes on the strip; Dell Publishing's Walt Disney's Comics and Stories
serialized stories from the strip through 1948.

Modern-day American reprints began with "The Bar None Ranch" (1940), which appeared in

Another Rainbow/Gladstone Publishing (and later Gemstone Publishing) began a tradition of serializing Gottfredson stories in regular Disney monthly comic books, which continued on and off until 2008, when they ceased publication. Gladstone also collected a number of Gottfredson's serials in the larger-size "comic albums" it issued during the 1980s;[15] in 1990, Disney Comics issued "Mickey Mouse Outwits the Phantom Blot" (1939) in the same format.[16]

In 2007,

Fantagraphics Books resumed production of the series with the same editorial team, now titled Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse
. A total of 14 volumes were published between 2011 and 2018, collecting the entirety of Gottfredson's Sunday color work (two volumes) and all of his serialized daily strips (12 volumes).

Legacy

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, before his health deteriorated, Gottfredson gave interviews to many comics-oriented magazines as well as mainstream publications. The deluxe edition of the book

San Diego Comic Book convention and annual convention of The Mouse Club.[17]

Between 1978 and 1983, Gottfredson did a total of 24 paintings commissioned by collector Malcolm Willits, inspired by the success of the paintings of the Disney ducks done by Carl Barks. The paintings depict various storylines from the classic period of the Mickey strip.[18]

Gottfredson's work had been printed in newspapers, magazines, and comic books worldwide for over 50 years, but as a Disney employee, he was never allowed to sign it. Gottfredson's identity was finally revealed in the mid-1960s by fan Malcolm Willits. Subsequently, reprints of his Mickey Mouse strips in the 1970s gave him credit.

Floyd Gottfredson died at his home in Southern California at the age of 81. In 2006, Gottfredson was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards' Hall of Fame.[19] He also was awarded an Inkpot Award in 1983.[20]

Fellow Disney Legend Floyd Norman notes the drawing desk Gottfredson used today "occupies a corner in a special room at Disney's Publishing department in Burbank."[21]

References

  1. ^ "United States Social Security Death Index," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/JB77-V3D : accessed 26 February 2013), Floyd Gottfredson, July 1986; citing U.S. Social Security Administration, Death Master File, database (Alexandria, Virginia: National Technical Information Service, ongoing).
  2. ^ Inkpot Award
  3. ^
    ISBN 978-1-60473-918-3
    .
  4. ^ "San Diego Comic-Con Awards: 2000s". Comic-con.org. 2 December 2012. Archived from the original on 6 October 2014. Retrieved 24 July 2019.
  5. ^
    ISBN 978-1-60699-441-2
    .
  6. ^
    ISBN 978-0-313-39167-5
    .
  7. ^ a b c d e f Andrae, Thomas (April 1984). "Floyd Gottfredson's 45 years with Mickey: The Mouse's Other Master". Nemo: The Classics Comics Library (6). Retrieved 23 February 2017.
  8. ISBN 978-1-4415-5183-2
    .
  9. ISBN 978-1-4939-0182-1
    . Retrieved 23 February 2017.
  10. ^
    ISBN 978-0-472-11756-7
    .
  11. ISBN 978-1-60473-023-4
    .
  12. ISBN 978-0-394-57519-3
    .
  13. ^ "GCD :: Issue :: Walt Disney Comics Digest #40". www.comics.org. Retrieved 2023-12-22.
  14. ^ "GCD :: Issue :: The Best of Walt Disney Comics #96171". www.comics.org. Retrieved 2022-04-30.
  15. ^ "Gladstone's Series I Comic Albums, Disney comic books, Gladstone comics, Uncle Scrooge comics, Mickey Mouse comics, Donald Duck comics, child books". www.brucehamilton.com. Retrieved 2022-04-30.
  16. ^ "Untitled Document". www.brucehamilton.com. Retrieved 2023-12-22.
  17. ^ "Birth of Disney Fandom Part One: The Mouse Club". www.mouseplanet.com. 28 March 2012. Retrieved 2022-04-30.
  18. ^ "Floyd Gottfredson paintings < Disney Comics Worldwide Blog". Retrieved 2022-04-30.
  19. ^ Gerstein, David (w). "Introduction" Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse—Free Comic Book Day, p. inside cover (May, 2007). Gemstone Publishing.
  20. ^ Inkpot Award#1983
  21. ^ Norman, Floyd (2004-07-20). "One Mouse, two Floyds". Jim Hill Media. Retrieved 2023-12-22.

Further reading

  • Floyd Gottfredson. "Mickey Mouse and Me". The Illustrator. v.63 #4 (Fall 1976), pp. 4–7, 28–31.
  • The Malcolm Willits Collection of Mickey Mouse Paintings by Floyd Gottfredson. Burbank, CA: Howard Lowery, 1993.
  • An Interview by Malcolm Willits. Vanguard #2 (1968), reprinted in The Duckburg Times #9 (1980).
  • Jim Korkis. "The Mouse Man" The Duckburg Times #6 (1979). Revised version in The Duckburg Times #17/18 (1983).
  • David R. Smith. "The Man Who Drew the Mouse—An Interview with Floyd Gottfredson". Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse in Color. Prescott, AZ: Another Rainbow Publishing, 1988. pp 97–112
  • "The Mouse's Other Master: Floyd Gottfredson's 45 Years with Mickey". Nemo #6 (Apr. 1984), pp. 6–23
  • "Barks and Gottfredson Meet: Two Disney Legends Share Their Memories" Nemo #7 (June 1984), pp. 12–15

External links

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