The Art of Pierangelo Boog: Arthur Floyd Gottfredson and Mickey Mouse

Arthur Floyd Gottfredson (1905 – 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.

One of young Floyd's gag cartoons for the Salt Lake City Telegram

In the begin Gottfredson was drawing four cartoons a month for Contact, and automobil journal, and occasional cartoons for the Salt Lake City Telegram during 1927.

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. It had originally been scripted by Walt Disney and drawn by Ub Iwerks who was succeeded by Win Smith (cartoonist). Iwerks quit Disney tried to hire Gottfredson at his studio when he left Disney, but Roy Disney wouldn't allow it. In May, Win Smith refused to write the strip, 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.

On April 1 Gottfredson began the first true adventure story, Mickey Mous in Death Valley, for Walt Disney (April - September 20, 1930).

In the years 1978 - 1983 Floyd Gottfredson created a series of paintings, each one devoted to a classic Mickey Mouse adventure. The paintings were used in the Mickey Mouse volumes published by FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS that are here higly recommended for lovers of the Mickey Mouse comic strips.