More Disney news emerged from this year’s San Diego Comic-Con yesterday, as it was announced at the Comics Reprint Revolution panel that Fantagraphics Books will partner with Disney to publish Floyd Gottfredson’s “Mickey Mouse” comic strips. The strip, which will be published in its entirety by Fantagraphics, originally ran daily from 1930 to 1975.
In an interview with Techland.com, publisher Gary Groth described the Mickey Mouse depicted in the early comic strips and commends Gottfredson’s illustration of the Mouse. He says:
He was a really feisty character, and he had character. He interacted with other characters, he got into scrapes, he was inventive, he was ingenious, it was classic yarn-spinning that Gottfredson was so brilliant at. The character himself had considerably more juice to him than a lot of people think. And it really was Gottfredson’s drawing, which was just so gorgeous (…) He’s the one who really made the design of Mickey Mouse what they used in Fantasia and other animated pieces.
The comics will be released beginning in May 2011, Fantagraphics reports, and is described to be the company’s biggest initiative since their reprinting of Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts” series. Groth says:
This is a dream project, just like “Peanuts” was. I think it’s the last truly great, masterful strip that has not been reprinted.
