Ta b l e o f C o n T e n T s

Setting the Stage

Master of Mickey Epics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Introduction by Warren Spector

Of Mouse and Man: The Early Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10Foreword by Thomas Andrae

Floyd Gottfredson, the Mickey Strip and Me . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14Appreciation by Floyd Norman

The Adventures: Floyd Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse Stories With Editor’s Notes

An Indebted Valley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

“MICKEY MOuSE IN DEATH VALLEY” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21APRIL 1 - SEPT. 20, 1930. Story by Walt Disney (4/1-5/17) and Floyd Gottfredson (5/19-9/20); Pencils by Win Smith (4/1-5/3), Floyd Gottfredson (5/5-6/7, 6/23-9/20), and Jack King (6/9-6/21); Inks by Win Smith (4/1-5/3), Floyd Gottfredson (5/5-5/31), Roy Nelson (6/2-6/21), and Roy Nelson and Hardie Gramatky (6/23-9/20)

Sheiks and Lovers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

“MR. SLICKER AND THE EGG ROBBERS” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73SEPTEMBER 22 - DEC. 29, 1930. Story and pencils by Floyd Gottfredson; Inks by Floyd Gottfredson and Hardie Gramatky (9/22-11/15) and Earl Duvall (11/17-12/29)

“MICKEY MOuSE MuSIC” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101DECEMBER 30, 1930 - JANuARY 3, 1931. Story by Floyd Gottfredson; Art by Earl Duvall

“THE PICNIC” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103JANuARY 12 - 17, 1931. Story and pencils by Floyd Gottfredson; Inks by Earl Duvall

“TRAFFIC TROuBLES” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105JAnuAry 5 - 10, 1931. Story by Floyd Gottfredson; Pencils by Earl Duvall (1/12-1/15) and Floyd Gottfredson (1/16, 1/17); Inks by Earl Duvall

Katnippery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

“MICKEY MOuSE VS. KAT NIPP” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109JAnuAry 19 - FebruAry 25, 1931. Story by Floyd Gottfredson; Pencils by Floyd Gottfredson (1/19-2/7, 2/14-2/21) and Earl Duvall (2/9-2/13, 2/23-2/25); Inks by Earl Duvall

Gallery feature—“He’s Funny That Way” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120Story by Merrill De Maris; Pencils by Floyd Gottfredson; Inks by Ted Thwaites

High Society: Reality Show Edition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

“MICKEY MOuSE, BOxING CHAMPION” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123FebruAry 26 - AprIL 29, 1931. Story by Floyd Gottfredson; Pencils by Earl Duvall (2/26-2/28) and Floyd Gottfredson (3/2-4/29); Inks by Earl Duvall (2/26-2/28) and Al Taliaferro (3/2-4/29)

“HIGH SOCIETY” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141APRIL 30 - MAY 30, 1931. Story and pencils by Floyd Gottfredson; Inks by Al Taliaferro

Gallery feature—“Gobs of Good Wishes” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Mick of All Trades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

“CIRCuS ROuSTABOuT” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153JuNE 1 - JuLY 7, 1931. Story and pencils by Floyd Gottfredson; Inks by Al Taliaferro

“PLuTO THE PuP” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163JuLY 8 - 18, 1931. Story and pencils by Floyd Gottfredson; Inks by Al Taliaferro

Middle-Euro Mouse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

“MICKEY MOuSE AND THE RANSOM PLOT” . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169JuLY 20 - NOVEMBER 7, 1931. Story and pencils by Floyd Gottfredson; Inks by Al Taliaferro

A Mouse (And a Horse, And a Cow) Against the World . . . . . . . . . . . 202

Ta b l e o f C o n T e n T s

“FIREMAN MICKEY” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203noveMber 9 - DeceMber 5, 1931. Story and pencils by Floyd Gottfredson; Inks by Al Taliaferro

“CLARABELLE’S BOARDING HOuSE” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211DECEMBER 7, 1931 - JANuARY 9, 1932. Story and pencils by Floyd Gottfredson; Inks by Al Taliaferro

The Gottfredson Archives: Essays and Archival Features

In the Beginning: Ub Iwerks and the Birth of Mickey Mouse . . . . . . . . . 222by Thomas Andrae

Starting the Strip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227by David Gerstein

“LOST ON A DESERT ISLAND” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231JANuARY 13 - MARCH 31, 1930. Story by Walt Disney; Pencils by Ub Iwerks (1/13-2/8) and Win Smith (2/10-3/31); Inks by Win Smith

The Cartoon Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253by David Gerstein

Gallery feature—“Lost on a Desert Island”additional Italian strips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254by Giorgio Scudellari

The Cast: Mickey and Minnie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255by David Gerstein

Sharing the Spotlight: Walt Disney and Win Smith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256by David Gerstein

Gallery feature —Gottfredson’s World:Mickey Mouse in Death Valley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

Uncloaking the Fox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259by David Gerstein

Gallery feature—Behind the Scenes: Pencil Mania . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260

Gallery feature—Gottfredson’s World:Mr. Slicker and the Egg Robbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

Sharing the Spotlight: Roy Nelson, Jack Kingand Hardie Gramatky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264by Alberto Becattini and David Gerstein

The One-Off Gottfredson Spin-Off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267by David Gerstein, with comic strip by Frank Behmak

Gallery feature—The Comics Department at Work: Mickey Mouse in Color (...And Black and White) . . . . . . . . . . 268

Gallery feature—Gottfredson’s World: Mickey Mouse Vs. Kat Nipp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271

Gallery feature—Gottfredson’s World:Mickey Mouse, Boxing Champion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272

Sharing the Spotlight: Earl Duvall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273by David Gerstein

The Cast: Butch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274by David Gerstein

Sharing the Spotlight: Al Taliaferro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275by David Gerstein

The Gottfredson Gang: In “Their Own” Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276by David Gerstein, with texts by Mortimer Franklin and R. M. Finch

Gallery feature—Gottfredson’s World:Strange Tales of Late 1931 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

The Cast: Pluto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286by David Gerstein

“I have it on good authority...” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287by Floyd Gottfredson

APRIL 1, 1930–

SEPTEMBER 20, 1930

N either Walt Disney nor Floyd Gottfredson hit the ground running when it came to comics. caught flat-footed by a King Features request that the Mickey strip become more adventure-oriented,

Disney set out in “Death Valley” to mimic The Gumps, then the most popular humor-adventure strip. But a look at “Death Valley” quickly reveals a hodge-podge of additional influences as well. In the effort to get away from the gaggier style of earlier Mickey strips, an anything-goes ethic prevailed in the fledgling comic strip department, and the result was a Mickey adventure like few others.

As created by Sidney Smith, The Gumps revolved around a fam-ily; an adventurous family, to be sure, but still a domestic unit of father (Andy), mother (Min), and son (chester). by contrast, Mickey and Min-nie were at the time high school age teens, whose unmarried status lent itself to a very different set of relationship crises. In particular, Minnie could face the threats of traditional melodrama-style villains, as she does here.

Then came the cliffhangers. In another nod to melodrama, “Death Valley” repeatedly threatens Mickey with drowning, hanging, and other Pauline-like perils—similar in concept to thrills he would face in the future, but made scarier here by a more gothic artistic style and by the overall lack of a humorous touch. More suited to older readers than to Mickey’s younger fans, the scares would be deployed with more taste and skill later on.

In the same vein, “Death Valley” also contains a typical 1930s usage of cartoon weapons. Bad guys are quick to stick ’em up in the des-ert; good guys (including Mickey) are forced to carry their own guns for self-defense. At the time, Wild West-themed adventure stories generally invoked such “trueshot cowboy” imagery without a second thought. As in Disney’s oft-seen “pecos bill” (in Melody Time [1948]) and Pirates of the Caribbean movies, the mayhem was intended as fantastic and over-the-top.

Finally, we’d like to draw your attention to other cultural refer-ences included in the story. As initial writer, Walt Disney set a standard for engaging nods to popular songs. “Tomorrow, tomorrow, how happy we will be” (April 1) opens the chorus to roy Turk’s “(I’ll be In My Dixie Home Again) To-Morrow,” then an Eddie Cantor standard. When Mickey speaks of “climb[ing] the golden stairs” to Sylvester’s law office (April 4), the remark is a nod to F. Heiser’s 1884 jubilee favorite, “climb-ing up De Golden Stairs.” even “you’d be Surprised” (June 27) and “Looking At the World Through rose-colored Glasses” (July 10) were then the titles of songs.

And when Mickey, entering Sylvester’s office through the window, shouts “Lafayette!—We are here!” (April 11), he is actually quoting Gen-eral John Pershing, who in 1917 used that phrase to salute the memory of revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette. [DG]

AN INDEBTED VALLEY

OPPOSITE, TOP: This oft-reprinted introductory strip, drawn by Win Smith in early 1930, was designed for newspapers that picked up

Mickey Mouse mid-continuity. Its alternate name for Pegleg Pete seems never to have been used again.

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