''Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse'' (also ''The Floyd Gottfredson Library'') is a 2011–2018 series of books collecting the span of work by

Floyd Gottfredson Arthur Floyd Gottfredson (May 5, 1905July 22, 1986) was an American cartoonist best known for his defining work on the ''Mickey Mouse'' comic strip, which he worked on from 1930 until his retirement in 1975. His contribution to Mickey Mouse comi ...

on the

daily Daily or The Daily may refer to: Journalism * Daily newspaper, newspaper issued on five to seven day of most weeks * ''The Daily'' (podcast), a podcast by ''The New York Times'' * ''The Daily'' (News Corporation), a defunct US-based iPad new ...

''Mickey Mouse'' comic strip in twelve volumes, as well as Gottfredson's

Sunday strips The Sunday comics or Sunday strip is the comic strip section carried in most western newspapers, almost always in color. Many newspaper readers called this section the Sunday funnies, the funny papers or simply the funnies. The first US newspap ...

of the same title over two separate volumes. The strips are reproduced from Disney proof sheets and artwork from private collections.

Background

The strip debuted on January 13, 1930, and was initially written by

Walt Disney Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...

and drawn first by

Ub Iwerks Ubbe Ert Iwwerks (March 24, 1901 – July 7, 1971), known as Ub Iwerks ( ), was an American animator, cartoonist, character designer, inventor, and special effects technician. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Iwerks grew up with a contentious ...

, then by Win Smith. Gottfredson took over the strip when Disney and Smith found themselves too busy, and he continued with it until 1975. These volumes start with Gottfredson's work from April 1, 1930, while including the earlier non-Gottfredson strips in an appendix to the first volume. The series is uncensored, and as the strips were done in the 1930s, some of the strips may come across as offensive to modern readers, especially due to

racial stereotypes An ethnic stereotype, racial stereotype or cultural stereotype involves part of a system of beliefs about typical characteristics of members of a given ethnic group, their status, societal and cultural norms. A national stereotype, or nation ...

that were common at the time. As presented in the books, however, the more dated material is accompanied by explanatory text, putting it in the context of its historical time. Gottfredson's run on Mickey Mouse lasted until 1975. In the earlier years, which are the focus of this series, it was a humorous adventure strip—as was common at the time—but in the later years became gag-focused. These books are the first time Gottfredson's work has been collected in North America, although they've previously been collected in the 1980s in Germany as ''The Complete Daily Strip Adventures of Mickey Mouse 1930–1955'' and in 2010 in Italy as ''Gli anni d'oro di Topolino''.

Format

The hardcover volumes have been edited by

David Gerstein David Gerstein (born February 6, 1974) is an American comics author and editor as well as an animation historian. Gerstein has five books and countless comic book credits to his name. He has written many Disney comics stories, usually featuring ...

and

Gary Groth Gary Groth (born September 18, 1954) is an American comic book editor, publisher and critic. He is editor-in-chief of ''The Comics Journal'', a co-founder of Fantagraphics Books, and founder of the Harvey Awards. Early life Groth is the son of ...

while designed by Jacob Covey, and are in a 10.5 inches × 8.75" inches (267 mm × 222 mm) landscape format. They are mostly in

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

, with some color pages, and each collects two years worth of strips. The strips are printed three to a page, with dozens of pages of supplementary material. The two ''Color Sundays'' volumes are in full color. The comic strips in the volumes have been reproduced from

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

's own master proof sheets of the strip. The books of the series were available separately as well as in two-volume box sets.

Volumes and box sets

Box sets

List of storylines featured in the series

Daily strips

Sunday strips

Reception

The series was given much praise for its production quality, the quality of the reproduction of the strips, and the extensiveness of the extra material.

Awards

* 2012 ** Volume one and two of the series won the

Eisner award The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books, sometimes referred to as the comics industry's equivalent of the Academy Awards. They are named in ...

for "Best archival collection/project" in the strip category. ** The series was nominated for the

Harvey Award The Harvey Awards are given for achievement in comic books. Named for writer-artist Harvey Kurtzman, the Harvey Awards were founded by Gary Groth in 1988, president of the publisher Fantagraphics, to be the successor to the Kirby Awards that were ...

in the category "Best Domestic Reprint Project". * 2015 **Volume five and six of the series were nominated for the Eisner award in the category "Best Archival Collection/Project - Strips (at least 20 years old)".

Free Comic Book Day 2011 In 2010 it was announced that Fantagraphics would participate in the promotional campaign

Free Comic Book Day Free Comic Book Day (FCBD) is an annual promotional effort by the North American comic book industry to attract new readers to independent comic book stores. It usually takes place on the first Saturday of May and is often cross-promoted wit ...

in May, 2011. They would release a

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

issue title
''Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse''
featuring a

Mickey Mouse Mickey Mouse is an animated cartoon Character (arts), character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The longtime mascot of The Walt Disney Company, Mickey is an Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic mouse who typically wears red sho ...

story by

. The one storyline included in the issue was ''Pluto the Racer''.

References

External links

Fantagraphics Books = Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse - The Floyd Gottfredson Library
*
Video preview of the first volume
at Fantagraphics' website *Previews of the books at Fantagraphics' website
19-page preview of the first volume
(

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

)
19-page preview of the second volume
(

) *Previews of the books at

Issuu Issuu, Inc. (pronounced "issue") is a Danish-founded American electronic publishing platform based in Palo Alto, California, United States. Founded in 2004 as a Danish startup, the company moved its headquarters to the United States in 2013. ...

Preview - ''Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse: Vol. 5''

** ttps://e.issuu.com/anonymous-embed.html?u=fantagraphics&d=wdmm07-preview Preview - ''Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Vol. 7''
Preview - ''Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Vol. 8''

** ttps://e.issuu.com/anonymous-embed.html?u=fantagraphics&d=wdmms2-preview Preview - ''Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse - Color Sundays Vol. 2''
Interview with series' editor David Gerstein - ''ComicsAlliance.com'' - "Mickey Mouse Editor David Gerstein On Bringing Floyd Gottfredson's Strips To A Modern Audience"
{{Portal bar, Comics Mickey Mouse Mickey Mouse comics Comic strip collection books Fantagraphics titles Disney comics titles Disney comic strips Comics about animals Comics about mice and rats Eisner Award winners