“The Floyd Gottfredson Library”

Deservedly nominated yesterday for a Harvey Award (Best Domestic Reprint Project), Fantagraphics Books’ Floyd Gottfredson Library is an ongoing pleasure for cartoon buffs, Disney historians, and fans of great cartooning everywhere. We’ve plugged the first two volumes before, and I just got the third – Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse – High Noon At Inferno Gulch – and it remains the gold standard for such presentations of classic comic strips. The reprints are crisp, clear and complete; the “bonus materials” assembled by co-editor David Gerstein are informative, thoroughly researched and illustrated with gold nuggets of rare images and art.

This is Gottfredson at his height (in my humble opinion) with serialized adventure stories including the infamous Bat Bandit saga. Gerstein includes rare unproduced storyboard sequences, trade ads, model sheets – even Gottfredson’s 1935 Disney Employee Identification Card! I can’t recommend this book (and the whole series) highly enough. They are planning two volumes per year for the next decade – Volume 4 is on the way. I can’t wait. This project is truly worthy of your support.