published in newspapers on his 25th birthday, May 5, 1930. In January 1932, he began work on the newly inaugurated Mickey Mouse color Sunday strip which, in addition to the daily, he continued through mid-1938. Gottfredson headed the comics department at Disney from 1930 to 1946, and was replaced by Frank Reilly. Originally, Gottfredson wrote and drew the Mickey Mouse strip alone, but in 1932, he pulled back to plotting the stories and doing the penciling, while the dialogue was mostly done by other hands. Scripts were written by Webb Smith (1932–33), Ted Osborne (1933–38), Merrill De Maris (1933–42), Dick Shaw (1942–43), Bill Walsh (1943–64), Roy Williams (1962-69) and Del Connell (1968–88). Even so, Gottfredson always worked closely with his writers, and would often suggest changes in the scripts whenever he thought it would improve a story. There were a variety of inkers on the strip through the years; inkers for the Sunday strips included Al Taliaferro and Ted Thwaites in the 1930s, and Manuel Gonzales until 1981; Taliaferro also inked daily strips. Gottfredson returned to inking daily strips himself in 1947. From the beginning, the strips were parts of long continuing stories. These introduced characters such as the Phantom Blot, Eega Beeva, and the Bat Bandit, which Gottfredson created; Disney created Eli Squinch, Mickey's nephews, Morty and Ferdie Fieldmouse, and Sylvester Shyster, who were also introduced in the comic. Gottfredson plotted the continuities until Bill Walsh started writing the strip in 1943. The stories were always untitled. Titles were usually assigned later, when the strips or pages were reprinted in picture-books or comic books, which the artists had no influence on. Starting in the 1950s, Gottfredson and writer Bill Walsh were instructed to drop the storylines and do only daily gags. Gottfredson continued illustrating the daily strip until he retired on October 1, 1975. Animation critic Geoffrey Blum said "Gottfredson's Mormon upbringing and his unflaggingly positive outlook made him the perfect keeper for this icon. Never complaining, chocking back his hurts... this is the ethic he brought to Mickey. Gottfredson's mouse combines the virtues of a good citizen and a good soldier." Reprints and compilations Gottfredson's Mickey strips were often collected in the 1930s and 1940s. Western Publishing's Big Little Book series based most of its Mickey volumes on the strip; Dell Publishing's Walt Disney's Comics and Stories serialized stories from the strip through 1948. Modern-day American reprints began