Floyd Gottfredson Vol. 1

I’ve written about what makes Floyd Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse sublime and unquestionably superior to the animated counterpart several times in the past, so I won’t repeat myself. But it bears constant reiteration that Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse: “Race to Death Valley” (Vol. 1) by Fantagraphics, a collection people have been waiting decades for, is a must for your comics/animation library.

This is the start of the reprinting of Gottfredson’s entire run of the Mickey Mouse daily strips, something comic fans thought they’d never live to see. The restoration of the Walt Disney-Gottfredson written story, Death Valley, has been something of a project of David Gerstein’s for at least half the time I’ve known him, and it’s easily the best version you’ll ever see of this historic story, not to mention every single other strip presented. (For completeness’s sake, the Disney/Ub Iwerks/Win Smith collaboration and first Mouse serial Lost on a Desert Island is also featured.)

Gottfredson hadn’t quite come into his own in the period covered in this tome (April 1930-January 1932), but you can see the art evolve from slightly crude beginnings to something that isn’t quite the classic Gottfredson Mickey look. By the end of the book, colorful costars like Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar (rarely ever more than just incidentals in the animated cartoons) are just as refined and well-developed as the main mouse is.

My hat’s off to David and his chums at Fantagraphics. I’d pre-order Vol. 2, due out in October, had I not bought this at full price today (worth every cent though). That second volume should feature stories like Treasure Island and Blaggard Castle, where Gottfredson begins his period as the single most accomplished comic strip storyteller. And still, the best is yet to come.

(Incidentally, I see I am thanked in the book by David for support and inspiration. Making all those jokes about Walt Disney’s Sylvester Shyster the Crooked Jew has finally paid off.)