Floyd Gottfredson was born in Kaysville, Utah on May 5, 1905. He came from a large Mormon family of eight children (three brothers and four sisters). As a child, he severely injured his arm in a hunting accident and was housebound for quite a while. During this period he became interested in cartooning.
In 1928, he moved to Los Angeles to try and find a job as a cartoonist for one of the many newspapers. Failing to find a job as a cartoonist, he heard that Walt Disney was looking for artists and he was hired at the Disney Studios as an inbetweener. Four months after he was hired, he took over the Mickey Mouse comic strip that he continued to produce for over four decades.
Mickey Mouse was the most popular cartoon character in the Thirties and an international celebrity. However, being such a highly visible figure meant that he was also a target for complaints from church groups, parent-teacher associations and others who felt that his feisty personality was setting a bad example for children.
Unfortunately, the Disney Studio bowed to these objections and this clever little hero with a daredevil spirit became more and more domesticated in his animated cartoons. However, the true spirit of Mickey was maintained for many more years in the daily comic strip drawn and sometimes written by the legendary Floyd Gottfredson. […]
