Merrill De Maris (February 26, 1898,
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
– December 31, 1948,
Escondido, California
Escondido is a city in San Diego County, California, United States. Located in the North County region, it was incorporated in 1888, and is one of the oldest cities in San Diego County. It has a population of 151,038 as of the 2020 census.
Et ...
) was an American writer who worked on
Disney comic strips for
King Features Syndicate
King Features Syndicate, Inc. is a American content distribution and animation studio, consumer product licensing and print syndication company owned by Hearst Communications that distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editoria ...
.
De Maris helped
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 ...
with many of his early
''Mickey Mouse'' comic strips; they co-created famous characters like
Phantom Blot
The Mickey Mouse universe is a fictional shared universe which is the setting for stories involving Disney cartoon characters Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Pluto, Goofy, and many other characters. The universe originated from the '' Mickey Mouse'' ...
,
Chief O'Hara and
Detective Casey. In 1942, they gave
Minnie Mouse
Minnie Mouse is a cartoon character created by The Walt Disney Company. As the longtime sweetheart of Mickey Mouse, she is an anthropomorphic mouse with white gloves, a bow, polka-dotted dress, white bloomers, and low-heeled shoes occasionally w ...
a full name as Minerva Mouse, for the four-month comic strip story "The Gleam".
De Maris also wrote for the ''
Silly Symphony
''Silly Symphony'' is an American animated series of 75 musical short films produced by Walt Disney Productions from 1929 to 1939. As the series name implies, the ''Silly Symphonies'' were originally intended as whimsical accompaniments to pieces ...
'' comic strip from December 1937 to October 1942, writing the comic strip adaptations of the feature films ''
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is a 19th-century German fairy tale that is today known widely across the Western world. The Brothers Grimm published it in 1812 in the first edition of their collection ''Grimms' Fairy Tales'' and numbered as T ...
'', ''
Pinocchio
Pinocchio ( , ) is a fictional character and the protagonist of the children's novel ''The Adventures of Pinocchio'' (1883) by Italian writer Carlo Collodi of Florence, Tuscany. Pinocchio was carved by a woodcarver named Geppetto in a Tuscan vil ...
'' and ''
Bambi
''Bambi'' is a 1942 American animated drama film directed by David Hand (supervising a team of sequence directors), produced by Walt Disney and based on the 1923 book ''Bambi, a Life in the Woods'' by Austrian author and hunter Felix Salten. ...
''.
In 1943, De Maris abandoned a half-finished outline for a
Donald Duck
Donald Fauntleroy Duck is a cartoon character created by The Walt Disney Company. Donald is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor shirt and cap with a bow tie. Donald is known fo ...
comic book story. The publisher gave the outline to
Carl Barks
Carl Barks (March 27, 1901 – August 25, 2000) was an American cartoonist, author, and painter. He is best known for his work in Disney comic books, as the writer and artist of the first Donald Duck stories and as the creator of Scrooge McDuck ...
, who polished it, made it longer, and published it as "Too Many Pets", in ''
Donald Duck Four Color'' #29 (Sept 1943).
References
External links
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American comics artists
Disney comics writers
1898 births
1948 deaths
People from Escondido, California
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