Newspaper Strip Mickey Versus Animated Mickey
JK: How closely did the comic strip follow the animated cartoons?

FG: We tried to follow the spirit of the Mickey animated cartoons but because we were doing adventure stories we had to go beyond them. The animated cartoons had just a loose story structure where there could be a lot of gags building to a conclusion. That isn’t how stories are done in newspaper strips. We had to develop the characters more to help sustain the story. I loved doing these little adventures but keeping them as humorous as possible.

JK: But weren’t some of your early strips influenced by Mickey’s animated adventures?

FG: Walt himself set the precedent for borrowing ideas from the cartoons. The strip was influenced by the cartoons but also the fads and movies of the day. The Mad Doctor influenced the strip story Mickey Mouse in Blaggard Castle although the mad professors in our story were modeled after a Boris Karloff movie I had just seen. Mickey and the Seven Ghosts was inspired by the animated cartoon Lonesome Ghosts. Mickey Mouse Runs His own Newspaper was inspired by the gangster movies of the time like Scarface and Little Caesar.

JK: Did you ever run into the same complaints that Walt was facing with the Mickey animated cartoons?

FG: There was one sequence in the Blaggard Castle story where Mickey grabs a pole and vaults over this alligator pit but as he is leaping, the pole breaks. King Features sent us a frantic telegram that they were going to cut out the entire sequence because the alligators would upset women and children reading the newspaper. I took photostats to Walt and he just laughed. He thought it was a good adventure and was confident that we had a way of making the resolution of the peril humorous. So he contacted the syndicate and they left it in. We also got censored when we did the Monarch of Medioka story because it kind of paralleled what was actually happening in Yugoslavia at that time where the archduke was trying to overthrow the king. Over the years, there was very little censorship because our goal was to try to stay true to the spirit of Disney animation.

Walt Says: “Simplify!”
JK: Did Walt have to approve your work before it was sent to the syndicate?

FG: Walt checked my work for the first couple of months after I took over the strip, but after that and all through the years, except to pass on an occasional suggestion, he very seldom concerned himself with the strip or the department. He seemed relieved not to have to be concerned with them. He had bigger things to worry about. We were just supposed to follow the general studio rule that any violence was to be done in a comedic manner. And we labored over the artwork to make it the highest quality we could.

JK: So Walt had no direct input into the direction of the strip?

FG: In the early days of the strip, I was always intrigued by details in the background like houses and picket fences and rainspouts. So one of the hardest things I had to learn was to simplify, to streamline. I do know he would still look at the proof sheets closely because sometimes I would get memos, but that was usually about any changes that were going to happen in animation that we needed to do in strips. The only direct input I would get from Walt was that I was putting in too much “junk” in the strip. “Why do you put so much junk in there? Simplify.” I don’t know if that was to help the storytelling or because of his experience in animation where you didn’t want the background too complicated. Looking back on those old strips, I think the old stories were too wordy and overloaded with dialogue.

JK: I notice your Mickey Mouse continues to change his look over the decades. Some people even thought a different artist was doing the strip at times.

FG: Mostly, I tried to keep up with the changes the Studio made to Mickey. I tried hard to match the Mickey I was drawing for the newspaper strip with the Mickey of the films. In January 1933, I dropped the thin white line above Mickey’s eyes for simplicity’s sake but other than that I just followed the new model sheets of Mickey that would filter down to me. Periodically, Mickey would lose and then regain his tail. He lost his short pants in the Forties and of course got pupils in his eyes with Fantasia. When I first saw the pupils in Mickey’s eyes on the model sheets I liked them immediately.

Gottfredson’s Favorite Animated Mickey
JK: I am sure you watched the animated cartoons closely. Do you have a favorite?

FG: Fred Moore was the fellow who really streamlined the mouse and some of the other characters. To me, the finest Mickey short cartoon that was ever made was The Nifty Nineties with Fred Moore’s design of Mickey. I’ve said this many times before but I think the best Mickeys ever done were by Fred Moore. I tried to imitate Fred but I don’t think anyone could ever copy his style.

JK: Since you worked at the Studio, did any of the animators like Moore drop by to comment on your work?

FG: The animation department didn’t even know we existed. We were so small and shoved in a back corner that it was out of sight, out of mind I guess. Our salaries were never as high as the animators. When the union got into it later, it finally was decided that scale for a Class I Comic Strip Artist was about the same as a minimum wage for an animator I think.

JK: The story continuities in the Mickey Mouse strip seem to stop in the ‘50s.

FG: We began to phase out of continuities and go back to a gag-a-day format at that time because it was a decision of King Features to help counteract the effects of television on newspapers. They felt that with a few exceptions that comic strip stories couldn’t compete with television.

JK: What was your impression of Walt Disney?

FG: Walt and Roy were great people to work for. Under them, the creative freedom was unbelievable. Roy was a little warmer to us that Walt. Walt was a tough taskmaster. I don’t think he even realized when he was being harsh. He was always just so focused on whatever project he was doing and was passionate that it be done right. That was all that mattered. The rest of us were just the tools he used. If, as you said, I kept the “real” Mickey alive, I was just doing the best I could as an extension of Walt and his dream. There was only one Walt Disney. There will never be another.

JK: Thank you, Floyd.

Jim Korkis is an award winning teacher, a professional actor and magician and a published author with several books and hundreds of magazine articles about animation to his credit. He is also an internationally recognized Disney historian whose research and writing has been used by The Walt Disney Co. on many projects. Jim is a founding member and contributor to Walt’s People, a critically acclaimed series of books reprinting interviews with people who worked with Walt Disney. In addition, Jim is a Walt Disney World Resort cast member.