Category Archives: floyd gottfredson

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.)

Via Jaime Weinman, I caught the news announced at Comic-Con (I tend to avoid any and all news associated with the place involuntarily) that Fantagraphics is planning to print the entire run of Floyd Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse daily continuities. That’s a beautiful thought, but they may be ultimately promising more than they can deliver. (We’re still waiting on those Pogo books.)

There’s a lot of dilemmas in reprinting a library set devoted to Gottfredson, which is why there hasn’t been a steady supply of them reprinted in America since Bruce Hamilton had the Disney license in the 1980s (before he went insane). It wasn’t for a lack of trying, as Gary Groth may be implying with his backhanded dig at Gemstone. Firstly, as addressed by Groth, a complete collection would include some genuinely racist material. There’s no dodging or spinning the issue. Most of the black characters are presented as dumber and uglier than dogshit in Gottfredson’s world, and, for a change, I completely sympathize with Disney’s nervousness about printing the more notorious stories.

Secondly, the sources for the strips will need to be seriously cleaned up for modern printing. Bad printing has ruined many a great Disney story in the past. I sincerely hope they take the necessary time to do justice to Gottfredson’s work.

Thirdly, and yes, objectively, most of the continuities after 1950 are very forgettable, which may be why Groth misremembered that 1955 was the last time a continuing storyline was used in the dailies. That doesn’t mean they will sell bad. On the contrary, they could sell wonderful, as save one 1952 continuity, none of the 1950s stories have been reprinted in the United States. The mileage on these stories will vary depending on the individual’s tolerance of hackneyed writing and drawing.

Fourth, final, and foremost, we’re talking about the Disney Corporation here. There will be guaranteed bottlenecks in the production. Some high-up won’t like how Mickey addresses Minnie in one story, or doesn’t like the brutality of Pete in another, or doesn’t like the cleavage showing on a femme fatale, and ask for changes, even though the number of minors actually buying the books will be in the single digits. Stuff won’t move, more delays will occur, and we might actually see Pogo Volume 1 before Mickey Volume 1.

It would really be wonderful to have all of these things in a nice bound volume (ala Barks, Kurtzman, Martin, etc.), but I wouldn’t hold your breath on anything positive having to do with the Wonderful World of Disney getting accomplished. I would like more than anything to be proven wrong, as Floyd Gottfredson was one of the most gifted of all 20th century storytellers, and a complete collection of his work is badly needed.

If anyone is left around to care, Mickey doesn’t die. I hope you’ve enjoyed this serial!