Floyd Gottfredson

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 honoured with the Disney Legends citation in 2003 and induction into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2006. Walt Disney Productions hired Gottfredson as an apprentice animator and in-betweener on 19 December 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, 5 May 1930. On 17 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. Originally, Gottfredson drew the strips alone, but in 1934 he pulled back to plotting the stories and doing the pencilling. He continued illustrating the daily strip until he retired on 1 October 1975. His last one was published on 15 November and his last Sunday strip on 19 September 1976. 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 on 22 July 1986 at the age of 81. Link to Wikipedia biography