Al Taliaferro

Who was Al Taliaferro?

Charles Alfred Taliaferro, known simply as Al Taliaferro, was a Disney comics artist who used to produce Disney comic strips for King Features Syndicate. Many of his strips were written by Bob Karp.

He is best known for his work on the Donald Duck comic strip, but he started his career lettering the Mickey Mouse strips, and drew the Bucky Bug comics in 1932 as well as Silly Symphonies pages from 1932 to 1939. Taliaferro co-created a number of characters, including Huey, Dewey and Louie, Bolivar, Grandma Duck, and arguably Daisy Duck. He drew Donald Duck comic strips from 1938 until his death in 1969 in Glendale, California.

After his family moved to Glendale, Al studied art at the "Institute of Art" in California. On January 5, 1931 he was hired in Disney Studios as an animator, but soon transferred to the comic strip department. At its height the Donald Duck comic strips was published in 322 newspapers.

While many of Taliaferro's strips were reprinted in Disney comic books, in only a few instances did he do original artwork for comic books. Among these was the Cheerios Premium Giveaway Donald Duck: Counter Spy and the cover of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #107. Two Children's books with Disney characters he illustrated are Donald and His Cat Troubles and Donald Duck and the Hidden Gold.