Floyd Gottfredson
From Free net encyclopedia
| Revision as of 18:49, 19 March 2006 96T (Talk | contribs) ← Previous diff |
Current revision 96T (Talk | contribs) |
Current revision
Arthur Floyd Gottfredson (May 5, 1905 - July 22, 1986) is the man who gave Mickey Mouse his comic strip personality.
Gottfredson was born in Kaysville, Utah. His great-grandfather had immigrated to the United States from Denmark in the 1840s. He came from a large Mormon family of 8 children. He had three brothers and four sisters. As a child, he severely injured his arm in a hunting accident. This disability stayed with him for the remainder of his life. The accident kept him house bound for quite a while during a long recovery. It was during this time that he became interested in cartooning. He took several cartooning correspondence courses. By the late 1920's he was drawing cartoons for trade journals and the Salt Lake City Telegram newspaper.
After coming second in a cartoon contest in 1928, he moved to southern California with his wife and family, just before Christmas. At the time, there were seven major newspapers in southern California, but Gottfredson was unable to find work with any of them. He had been a projectionist in Utah and soon found a job as one in California. A year later, the movie theater was torn down and he had to look for work again.
Gottfredson heard that Walt Disney Productions was hiring artists and he presented his portfolio and applied for a job. He was hired as an apprentice animator and inbetweener by Walt Disney on December 19, 1929. In April, 1930 he started working on the four month old Mickey Mouse comic strip. The original Mickey Mouse comic strip was scripted by Walt Disney and drawn at first by Ub Iwerks, then by Win Smith. In May, 1930, Walt Disney persuaded Gottfredson to take over the daily comic strip. At the time Disney promised Gottfredson this was a temporary arrangement until someone else could be found to take over the strip. Walt Disney must have forgotten his promise, because Floyd Gottfredson continued to produce the Mickey Mouse comic strips for the next 45 years. Gottfredson's first Mickey Mouse comic strip was published in newspapers on May 5, 1930 - Gottfredson's 25th birthday. On January 17, 1932, the first color Mickey Mouse comic strip was published. In addition to the daily comic strip, he drew the Sunday strip from 1932 until mid-1938.
Originally, Gottfedson did all the work on the strip alone, but in 1934, his role was limited to plotting the stories and doing the pencils. Scripts were done by Ted Osborne (1934-49), Merrill De Maris (1934-42), Dick Shaw (1942-44), Bill Walsh (1944-64), Roy Williams (1964), and Del Connell (1968-82). 1 Inking was done by a variety of artists, 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, Detective Casey, Chief O'Hara, and The Phantom Blot. However, from 1955, Gottfredson and writer Bill Walsh were forced to do daily gags only.
Gottfredson continued illustrating the daily strip until he retired on October 1, 1975. His last daily comic strip was published on November 15, 1975, his last Sunday strip on September 19, 1976.
In his later years, before the onset of ill health, Floyd Gottfredson gave interviews that were published by many comics-oriented magazines and other mainstream publications. Also the deluxe edition of the book Mickey Mouse in Color included a small record album that had an interview with Gottfersdon and famed Disney duck comic book artist Carl Barks.
His work had been printed in newspapers, magazines, and comic books all over the world for over 50 years. But, because he was an employee of the Walt Disney Company, he was never allowed to sign a single comic strip.
Gottfredson's identity was finally revealed in the mid-1960s by fan Malcolm Willits. Also reprints of his classic Mickey Mouse comic strips starting in the 1970s gave him credit.
He died in 1986 at his Southern California home.de:Floyd Gottfredson es:Floyd Gottfredson fr:Floyd Gottfredson it:Floyd Gottfredson sv:Floyd Gottfredson