Manuel Gonzales

Who was Manuel Gonzales?

Manuel Gonzales was a Spanish-American Disney comics artist. He was born in Fresnadillo a Cabañas, Zamora and died in Los Angeles.

Gonzales emigrated from Spain to the USA in 1918 via Ellis Island, and was employed at the Walt Disney Studios in September 1936, where he initially worked as an "in-betweener" on the motion picture, Snow White.

Later working in the comic strip department, Gonzales took over the illustrating of the Mickey Mouse Sunday page from Floyd Gottfredson in 1938. Only interrupted by his military service for the USA in World War II from 1942 to 1945, Gonzales performed this job until his retirement in 1981. During the war, he worked for the U.S. Army as an artist animating short newsreel clips promoting war bonds and the war effort.

Bill Walsh wrote the scripts for the Sunday pages from 1946 to 1963. These pages told funny stories from Mickey's everyday life, as well as doing sometimes surrealistic gags featuring Gonzales' specialty, Goofy. Gonzales and Walsh also introduced a new character to the Disney universe, the intelligent and witty bird Ellsworth, in 1950. In general, the Sunday pages have status as better than Gottfredson's daily gags of the time.