Uncle Floyd - a short biography
In the '30s, Mickey Mouse was just about the biggest name in entertainment.
One of the main reasons for this is, doubtlessly, the somewhat uninhibited
cartoons produced with the Mouse during this time. But that's merely half of
the truth. In fact there was also a young cartoonist named Floyd Gottfredson,
who managed to get Mickey as famous in another medium - comics.
Gottfredson got the job as animator in the Disney Studios in 1929. In the
spring 1930 he got to take over the fairly new-started daily strip starring
the Mouse. The first episode was published on May 5th 1930, on Gottfredson's
25th birthday.
Gottfredson liked the animating business, and it was not without hesitation
he assigned himself to the new task. Disney had persuaded him with the
argument that he was most likely to be relieved within a couple of weeks by
someone else. Uncle Walt, however, apparently forgot about his promise, and
Gottfredson stayed as the cartoonist for the Mickey Mouse daily strips for
the next 45 years to come - an incredible feat, to say the least!
Read more about Floyd Gottfredson on David Gerstein's Floyd Gottfredson page!!!
Here's a drawing (A4, ink) I did in
1998 (published in Swedish fanzine NAFS(k)uriren #30) - a hommage for
Mickey's 70th birthday attempting to illustrate the most important epochs
in the mouse's life, including Gottfredson's.
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