25 Facts About Al Taliaferro

Al Taliaferro is best known for his work on the Donald Duck comic strip.

In January 1931, Al Taliaferro was hired by Walt Disney Studios as an animator, but soon transferred to the comic strip department.

Al Taliaferro served as the inker for a model sheet for the Mickey Mouse character.

The original writer and penciller for the comic strip was Earl Duvall, with Al Taliaferro serving as his inker.

Al Taliaferro was the second Disney character to become the star of his own comic strip series.

The initial storyline of Al Taliaferro's comic strip was a coming-of-age story.

Al Taliaferro and Ted Osborne started producing comic strip adaptations of specific short films, as a tie-in to whichever Silly Symphony the Disney studio was trying to promote.

Al Taliaferro was the first artist to adapt Big Bad Wolf and the Three Little Pigs into comics, as characters of serial fiction.

The Big Bad Wolf series would be continued by other artists, long after Al Taliaferro stopped producing new stories for it.

The most prominent character introduced in the film was Donald Duck, and Al Taliaferro was the first artist to depict him in comics.

Al Taliaferro came up with the idea of a solo comic strip for Donald Duck, but had trouble convincing his bosses to support his idea.

Al Taliaferro initially pitched the idea to Roy O Disney, who rejected it.

Al Taliaferro then produced three weeks-worth of episodes for a Donald Duck comic strip, brought them to Roy Disney, and asked him to offer the strip to King Features Syndicate for publication.

Al Taliaferro co-operated with writer Merrill De Maris to create new sample stories, but these were rejected.

Al Taliaferro then co-operated with writer Homer Brightman, and this time the sample stories were approved.

Al Taliaferro's idea was greenlighted and the new Donald Duck comic strip was about to begin.

Al Taliaferro's was the strip's main penciller, while Homer Brightman was its writer and came up with the gags.

Al Taliaferro relied on a number of assistant artists, including Ellis Eringer, Frank Grundeen, Al Hubbard, and Kay Wright.

Al Taliaferro's design was based on the St Bernard in the 1936 Mickey Mouse film, Alpine Climbers.

Al Taliaferro actually proposed the initial idea for the film, so that the studio would have duck counterparts to Morty and Ferdie Fieldmouse, the nephews of Mickey Mouse.

Al Taliaferro based the design of the character on his mother-in-law and her old-fashioned ways.

Al Taliaferro's version of Grandma is a hard-working farmer, but out of touch with the technological progress of the world surrounding her.

Al Taliaferro retired from the daily comic strip on October 10,1967.

Al Taliaferro kept working on the Sunday version of the strip until his death in February, 1969.

Al Taliaferro was posthumously honored with a Disney Legends award in 2003.