There are probably many Americans who are familiar with John Hancock's elaborate signature and paraph which he affixed to the Declaration of Independence. And the signatures of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Thomas A. Edison are familiar to some people. But it is neither a statesman nor an inventor whose signature is the most recognizable of all. It is Walter Elias Disney.
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It did not take long after the introduction of Mickey Mouse in 1928 for Walt Disney to rise to fame. The Mickey Mouse cartoons were extremely popular, and soon Mickey Mouse was known in the four corners of the world. To help promote the cartoon character, and to maintain a public awareness of him, story books, comic books, comic strips, and magazines were published. The first Mickey Mouse book and comic strip appeared in the United States in 1930; the first comic magazine in Italy in 1932. While Walt Disney did not actually draw Mickey himself, King Features Syndicate, which distributed the comic strip, and the book publishers felt that one name should be promoted in conjunction with the character, and that name was Walt Disney. Soon, a Walt Disney signature logo, based by artists on Walt Disney's actual signature, was being widely used. Comic buyers not only in the U.S., but in Europe, South America, Australia, Africa, and Asia were able to recognize the Disney publications by the distinctive signature logo.
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