MM

Olivier mouse-ducks at wanadoo.fr
Mon Nov 5 16:51:37 CET 2001


Hi everyone!

Dim:
>> Seven creartors for only five stories?Why was this place in the comic strips
>> department of Disney unwanted?How did Floyd Gottfredson ended up doing >>this job for years if he
thought it ewas only temporary?

Five stories? I guess it depends how you separate them since there were no "title panels", it was a
one big continuity.
Would they be: the plane, the island, Death Valley, golf, Mr Slicker?
(Yes, I'm too lazy to check the INDUCKS :D )

I don't know if  it was really "unwanted".
What follows is taken from David Smith's interview of  Floyd Gottfredson(Nov 5, 1975) (published in
Gladstone's MM book).
1/ Walt Disney was more interested in animation.
2/ Ub Iwerks was the main animator.
3/ Win Smith quit the studio after an argument with Disney
4/ You will find that Merril de Maris & Ted Osborne were on & off; in  Gottfredson explained that
Disney kept switching them, having one work with Gottfredson and the other in the Story Department,
then trading them because he liked what the one was doing with Gottfredson. (p 103)
5/ Gottfredson wanted to do comics trips. "Walt said, 'Well, you don't want to get involved in that.
Comic strip work is a rat race, and there's no future in it. Animation is where the future is going
to be." Gottfredson thus started as an in-betweener. When Win Smith quit, Disney asked him to taker
over "for a couple of  weeks." Gottfredson had become interested in animation by then. "And this two
weeks, of  course, dragged into a month, and I began to wonder if  he was looking for anyone. And
then, after a couple of  months, I began to worry for fear that he *was*, thatt he might find
someonje-- because I now had regained my own interest in comic strips. And the subject was enver
brought up again. Forty-six years later I was still doing the strip-- until I retired". (pp 98-100)
I guess Disney may have forgotten about it or may have been too busy or may not have found someone
suitable for the job, and may have seen that Gotttfredson was doing well, and he wanted to keep on
doing the strip.

>>In his first appearance on 1939's "Mickey Mouse outwits the Phantom
>>Blot"(sadly unpublished in Greece) the Blot is said to be working as a
>>spy.Is it explained who does he serve?
Sept 6, 1939: "This invention was bought by a firm in this country who were going to furnish it to
hospitals at cost! But a certain syndicate abroad meant to have it at any price--!
Sept 7: "The 'Blot' 's confession tells of  being the agent for a foreign syndicate which was after
a secret formula being taken to America!"

>>Mickey says that he knows Pete would never kill an unarmed man.And Pete >>answers Mickey knows
well how sensitive he is.
Interesting. Pete does try to kill (an unarmed) Mickey in Gottfredson's strips.

Best wishes,
Olivier





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