Al Taliaferro

• Born 1906-08-29 · Died 1969-02-03

Al Taliaferro was a comics artist who helped define ‘Donald Duck’ and the Duck Family for forty years. He started his career lettering the ‘Mickey Mouse’ syndicated strip (1931–1932). He took over the ‘Silly Symphonies’ Sunday page (1932–1939), inking over Ed Duvall’s pencils the first few months. There, he created the first ‘Bucky Bug’ feature (1932–1934). The famously rhyming stories were written by Duvall and later Ted Osborne. Osborne and Taliaferro then began adapting ‘Silly Symphonies’ cartoons in the Sunday page, such as ‘The Wise Little Hen’ (1934) with the first comics appearance of Donald Duck, ‘The Robber Kitten’ (1935), and ‘Elmer Elephant’ (1936). In 1938, Taliaferro and writer Bob Karp launched the ‘Donald Duck’ daily syndicated strip and at the end of 1939 they added a ‘Donald Duck’ Sunday page that replaced ‘Silly Symphonies’. Taliaferro drew both strips through October 1968 and February 1969, respectively, becoming one of the most significant Disney Duck artists. Both in ‘Silly Symphonies’ and then in the ‘Donald Duck’ strips, he brought characters from the Disney cartoons to the printed page and was the artist co-creator of new characters from Huey, Dewey, and Louie to Grandma Goose and her farmhand Gus Goose. Taliaferro was posthumously given a Disney Legends award in 2003.