The Wizard of Id
The Wizard of Id is a daily newspaper comic strip created by American cartoonists Brant Parker and Johnny Hart. Beginning in 1964, the strip follows the antics of a large cast of characters in a shabby medieval kingdom called "Id". From time to time, the king refers to his subjects as "Idiots"; the title is a play on The Wizard of Oz, combined with the Freudian psychological term Id, which represents the instinctive and primal part of the human psyche. In 1997, Brant Parker passed his illustrator's duties on to his son, Jeff Parker, involved with creating Id for a decade. In 2002, the strip appeared in some 1,000 newspapers all over the world, syndicated by Creators Syndicate. Hart's grandson Mason Mastroianni took over writing duties on the strip after Hart's death in 2007; the new byline, "B. C. by Mastroianni and Hart," appeared for the first time in another of their strips on January 3, 2010. On December 14, 2015, Jeff Parker passed his duties on to Mastroianni. In the early 1960s, Johnny Hart, having created the successful B.
C. began collaborating with his friend, then-unpublished cartoonist Brant Parker, on a new comic strip. Having drawn cartoons about the Stone Age, Hart advanced through time to the Middle Ages, taking the idea from a deck of playing cards; the Wizard of Id was first syndicated on November 9, 1964, drawn by Parker and co-written by Parker and Hart. On November 17, 2014, the strip formally celebrated its 50th anniversary, a number of other strips, including Beetle Bailey, BC, Ballard Street, Dennis the Menace, Mother Goose and Grimm, Mutts, Pooch Café, The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee, Barney Google and Snuffy Smith ran special 50th anniversary commemorative strips. Hi and Lois ran an otherwise-ordinary strip with a portrait of the Wizard in the last panel, while Speed Bump ran a cartoon of Harry Potter in a Wizard of Id T-shirt, Family Circus put a greeting on a book, Blondie showed a greeting written on a cake in the first panel; the Wizard of Id oppressed mythical kingdom of Id. It follows people from all corners of the kingdom, but concentrates on the court of a tyrannical, dwarfish monarch known only as "the King".
The strip's humor satirizes modern American culture, deliberate anachronisms are rampant. Technology changes to suit. In some strips the king is elected to his monarchial position; the aspects that stay the same, are that Id is in the middle of nowhere, home to a large castle surrounded by a moat. The king and his subjects run an inept army perpetually at war with "the Huns", while the unhappy, overtaxed peasants make little money as farmers and stablehands to keep modest lifestyles; the Wizard of Id follows a color Sunday page. There are running gags relating to the main cast, to a variety of secondary, continuing characters, to the kingdom itself, it will run an extended sequence on a given theme over a week or two. For instance, in 1967 there was a six-week story with the Wizard taking over the throne. According to Don Markstein's Toonopedia "The strip's humor style—quite contemporary, in contrast to its medieval setting—ranges from broad and low to pure black"; the style in which certain characters are drawn has changed from the early years of the strip to today.
For example, the old style of the King's head was more rectangular, he had a crown with identifiable card suits on it, his mustache and beard always hid his mouth, his beard extended to a curved point when the King was shown in profile. In the new style, the King's head is more trapezoidal with a smaller and undecorated crown, he has a huge nose which covers his mouth and chin, when he opens his mouth it appears that his beard has been shaved off. On December 14, 2015, Mason Mastroianni took over the strip from Jeff Parker; the King: A pint-sized despot. His name is given as "Id". "Sire" to his subjects, he is greedy. Jokes are centered on his height, he wears a cape that makes him look like a playing card. From his throne room he hands out Draconian punishments for crimes, he is only looking to win votes and money. He has a thin skin and a short temper, main characters find themselves chained to the wall or the rack if they thoughtlessly insult the king, he is hated by the peasants, who to his dismay proclaim "The king is a fink!"
However, he is shown to have a quirky softer side, it is mentioned his only friends are the moat monsters. His "pets" are a St. Bernard dog named Bonapart. An ancestor of The King-who resembles his descendant-was King of Id II, beheaded by his successor King of Id III. In regard to The King's parents: His father, king until his son overthrew him, is kept in a tower surrounded by "The King of Id" jack-in-the-box toys—the only gifts his son gives him. On one occasion the King calls himself a "fink" His mother works as a charwoman and complains and scolds her son—the only person who ever
Author
An author is the creator or originator of any written work such as a book or play, is thus a writer. More broadly defined, an author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility for what was created; the first owner of a copyright is the person who created the work i.e. the author. If more than one person created the work a case of joint authorship can be made provided some criteria are met. In the copyright laws of various jurisdictions, there is a necessity for little flexibility regarding what constitutes authorship; the United States Copyright Office, for example, defines copyright as "a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States to authors of "original works of authorship". Holding the title of "author" over any "literary, musical, certain other intellectual works" gives rights to this person, the owner of the copyright the exclusive right to engage in or authorize any production or distribution of their work.
Any person or entity wishing to use intellectual property held under copyright must receive permission from the copyright holder to use this work, will be asked to pay for the use of copyrighted material. After a fixed amount of time, the copyright expires on intellectual work and it enters the public domain, where it can be used without limit. Copyright laws in many jurisdictions – following the lead of the United States, in which the entertainment and publishing industries have strong lobbying power – have been amended since their inception, to extend the length of this fixed period where the work is controlled by the copyright holder. However, copyright is the legal reassurance that one owns his/her work. Technically, someone owns their work from the time. An interesting aspect of authorship emerges with copyright in that, in many jurisdictions, it can be passed down to another upon one's death; the person who inherits the copyright enjoys the same legal benefits. Questions arise as to the application of copyright law.
How does it, for example, apply to the complex issue of fan fiction? If the media agency responsible for the authorized production allows material from fans, what is the limit before legal constraints from actors and other considerations, come into play? Additionally, how does copyright apply to fan-generated stories for books? What powers do the original authors, as well as the publishers, have in regulating or stopping the fan fiction? This particular sort of case illustrates how complex intellectual property law can be, since such fiction may involved trademark law, likeness rights, fair use rights held by the public, many other interacting complications. Authors may portion out different rights they hold to different parties, at different times, for different purposes or uses, such as the right to adapt a plot into a film, but only with different character names, because the characters have been optioned by another company for a television series or a video game. An author may not have rights when working under contract that they would otherwise have, such as when creating a work for hire, or when writing material using intellectual property owned by others.
In literary theory, critics find complications in the term author beyond what constitutes authorship in a legal setting. In the wake of postmodern literature, critics such as Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault have examined the role and relevance of authorship to the meaning or interpretation of a text. Barthes challenges the idea, he writes, in his essay "Death of the Author", that "it is language which speaks, not the author". The words and language of a text itself determine and expose meaning for Barthes, not someone possessing legal responsibility for the process of its production; every line of written text is a mere reflection of references from any of a multitude of traditions, or, as Barthes puts it, "the text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture". With this, the perspective of the author is removed from the text, the limits imposed by the idea of one authorial voice, one ultimate and universal meaning, are destroyed; the explanation and meaning of a work does not have to be sought in the one who produced it, "as if it were always in the end, through the more or less transparent allegory of the fiction, the voice of a single person, the author'confiding' in us".
The psyche, fanaticism of an author can be disregarded when interpreting a text, because the words are rich enough themselves with all of the traditions of language. To expose meanings in a written work without appealing to the celebrity of an author, their tastes, vices, is, to Barthes, to allow language to speak, rather than author. Michel Foucault argues in his essay "What is an author?" that all authors are writers, but not all writers are authors. He states that "a private letter may have a signatory—it does not have an author". For a reader to assign the title of author upon any written work is to attribute certain standards upon the text which, for Foucault, are working in conjunction with the idea of "the author function". Foucault's author function is the idea that an author exists only as a fun
Widow
A widow is a woman whose spouse has died and a widower is a man whose spouse has died. The treatment of widows and widowers around the world varies. A widow is a woman; the state of having lost one's spouse to death is termed widowhood. These terms are not applied to a divorcé following the death of an ex-spouse; the term widowhood can be used for either sex, at least according to some dictionaries, but the word widowerhood is listed in some dictionaries. The word viduity is used; the adjective for either sex is widowed. In societies where the husband is the sole provider, his death can leave his family destitute; the tendency for women to outlive men can compound this, as can men in many societies marrying women younger than themselves. In some patriarchal societies, widows may maintain economic independence. A woman would carry on her spouse's business and be accorded certain rights, such as entering guilds. More widows of political figures have been among the first women elected to high office in many countries, such as Corazón Aquino or Isabel Martínez de Perón.
In 19th-century Britain, widows had greater opportunity for social mobility than in many other societies. Along with the ability to ascend socio-economically, widows—who were "presumably celibate"—were much more able to challenge conventional sexual behaviour than married women in their society. In some parts of Europe, including Russia, Greece and Spain, widows used to wear black for the rest of their lives to signify their mourning, a practice that has since died out. Many immigrants from these cultures to the United States as as the 1970s have loosened this strict standard of dress to only two years of black garments. However, Orthodox Christian immigrants may wear lifelong black in the United States to signify their widowhood and devotion to their deceased husband. In other cultures, widowhood customs are stricter. Women are required to remarry within the family of their late husband after a period of mourning. With the rise of HIV/AIDS levels of infection across the globe, rituals to which women are subjected in order to be "cleansed" or accepted into her new husband's home make her susceptible to the psychological adversities that may be involved as well as imposing health risks.
It may be necessary for a woman to comply with the social customs of her area because her fiscal stature depends on it, but this custom is often abused by others as a way to keep money within the deceased spouse's family. It is uncommon for widows to challenge their treatment because they are "unaware of their rights under the modern law…because of their low status, lack of education or legal representation.". Unequal benefits and treatment received by widows compared to those received by widowers globally has spurred an interest in the issue by human rights activists; as of 2004, women in United States who were "widowed at younger ages are at greatest risk for economic hardship." Married women who are in a financially unstable household are more to become widows "because of the strong relationship between mortality and wealth." In underdeveloped and developing areas of the world, conditions for widows continue to be much more severe. However, the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, while slow, is working on proposals which will make certain types of discrimination and treatment of widows illegal in the countries that have joined CEDAW.
The phenomenon that refers to the increased mortality rate after the death of a spouse is called the widowhood effect.. It is “strongest during the first three months after a spouse's death, when they had a 66-percent increased chance of dying.” Most widows and widowers suffer from this effect during the first 3 months of their spouse's death, however they can suffer from this effect on in their life for much longer than 3 months. There remains controversy over whether women or men have worse effects from becoming widowed, studies have attempted to make their case for which side is worse off, while other studies try to show that there are no true differences based on gender and other factors are responsible for any differences. A recent study shows that holding post-materialist views provides greater levels of well-being in widowhood. "postmaterialist values not only lead to a new way of living for singles, but free singles from feeling judged in doing so, hence encourage them to adapt accordingly.
". Of all unmarried groups, widowed people benefit the most from these values. A variable, deemed important and relative to the effects of widowhood is the gender of the widow. Research has shown that the difference falls in the burden of care and how the react after the spouse's death. For example, women carry more a burden than men and are less willing to want to go through this again. After being widowed, however and women can react differently and have a change in lifestyle. A study has sought to show that women are more to yearn for their late husband if he were to be taken away suddenly. Men on the other hand tend to be more to long for their late wife if she were to die after suffering a long, terminal illness. Another change that happens to most men is. For example, without a wife there, he is more to not watch what he eats like he would if she were there. I
Creators Syndicate
Creators Syndicate is an American independent distributor of comic strips and syndicated columns to daily newspapers and other digital outlets. When founded in 1987, Creators Syndicate became one of the few successful independent syndicates founded since the 1930s and was the first syndicate to allow cartoonists ownership rights to their work. Creators Syndicate is based in California. Creators Syndicate originated on February 13, 1987, after the December 24, 1986-announced sale of the Irvine, California-based News America Syndicate to King Features Syndicate, a print syndication company owned by The Hearst Corporation; the pending sale of News America Syndicate, first reported by Advertising Age in October 1986, prompted 36-year-old News America Syndicate president Richard S. Newcombe to leave NAS in January 1987 and use financial backing from London-based publisher Robert Maxwell to form Creators Syndicate before the close of the NAS' sale. Ann Landers the world's most syndicated newspaper columnist announced that she was leaving NAS to join the newly formed Creators Syndicate.
Within a month, Creators Syndicate acquired the syndication rights to the enormously popular comic strip B. C. and a few months after that acquired the syndication rights to the cartoon works of Herblock, an American editorial cartoonist and author known for his commentary on domestic and foreign policy. Milton Caniff was another of several important cartoonists who had tried unsuccessfully to secure rights to their creations. In 1946, he walked away from the enormously popular Terry and the Pirates comic strip because his syndicate insisted that they own his creation. After Creators Syndicate was founded, Caniff sent Newcombe a postcard saying, “To put it on the record: Hooray!!!" Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Mike Peters told Editor & Publisher magazine, "It's long overdue that syndicates realize a new day is here. Indentured servitude went out in the 1500s." Johnny Hart, creator of B. C. and The Wizard of Id, called Creators “a history-making venture in syndication." Bil Keane, creator of The Family Circus, described Creators Syndicate as "the first breath of fresh air the syndicates have had in 100 years of existence."
The New York Times ran a story about Newcombe with the headline, “A Superhero for Cartoonists?” Today as a result of Creators Syndicate, all syndicates grant cartoonists ownership rights to their work. In 1991 Creators Syndicate took over Heritage Features Syndicate, part of the conservative Heritage Foundation. In 2008 Creators Syndicate acquired the Copley News Service, a wire service that distributed news, political cartoons, opinion columns. In 2011 Jack Newcombe became President of Creators Syndicate, together with Rick Newcombe started Creators Publishing and Sumner Books, which have published more than 150 titles. In 2012, after 25 years of operating in the city of Los Angeles, Creators Syndicate moved to nearby Hermosa Beach because of a tax dispute with the city. Since 2012, Creators has expanded its business to include Creators Publishing, Alpha Comedy, a literary and lifestyle magazine, a political website, a podcast network, Sumner Books, an e-book and audiobook publishing company.
Official website Creators Syndicate in the News Podcasts of Creators Syndicate articles
B.C. (comic strip)
B. C. is a daily American comic strip created by cartoonist Johnny Hart. Set in prehistoric times, it features a group of cavemen and anthropomorphic animals from various geologic eras. B. C. made its newspaper debut on February 17, 1958, was among the longest-running strips still written and drawn by its original creator when Hart died at his drawing board in Nineveh, New York, on April 7, 2007. Now produced by Mason Mastroianni, B. C. is syndicated by Creators Syndicate. B. C. was rejected by a number of syndicates until the New York Herald Tribune Syndicate accepted it, launching the strip on February 17, 1958. Hart was assisted with B. C. by gag writers Jack Caprio and Dick Boland. When the Herald Tribune syndicate folded in 1966, B. C. was taken over by the Publishers Syndicate. That syndicate changed hands and names — Publishers-Hall Syndicate, the Field Newspaper Syndicate, News America Syndicate, North America Syndicate — becoming part of King Features. At that point, in 1987, Hart changed distributors to Creators Syndicate, becoming one of Creators' first syndicated strips.
After Hart's death in 2007, the strip began being produced by Hart's grandsons Mason Mastroianni and his brother Mick Mastroianni, Hart's daughter Perri. For a visual glossary, see Meet The Actors at John Hart Studios. Hart was inspired to draw cavemen through the chance suggestion of one of his coworkers at General Electric, took to the idea "because they are a combination of simplicity and the origin of ideas." The name for the strip "may have been suggested by my wife, Bobby," Johnny recalls. Hart describes the title character as similar to himself, playing the "patsy." The other major characters — Peter, Clumsy Carp and Thor — were patterned after friends and co-workers. The animal characters include dinosaurs, ants and an anteater, clams, a snake, a turtle and bird duo, an apteryx. B. C.: An orange haired, humble, naïve slob and eternal patsy. B. C. makes nighttime rounds as his alter-ego, "The Midnight Skulker." Peter: A yellow haired, self-styled genius and the world's first philosophical failure, founder of the "Prehistoric Pessimists Society" and the "Truth Pedestal," and the discoverer of oil.
Peter is patterned after Peter Reuter. Thor: a self-proclaimed ladies' man. Thor was patterned after another of Hart's friends from Thornton Kinney; the Fat Broad: a bossy cavewoman who enjoys clobbering snakes. The Cute Chick: a sex object in a world that had not yet discovered objectivity. Wiley: a peg-legged, unshaven, woman-fearing, water-hating poet and coach of the local baseball and football teams, not to mention the first bartender. Wiley was patterned after Hart's brother-in-law, Wiley Baxter, who lost his leg in World War II. Clumsy Carp: a nerdy, bespectacled ichthyologist and perpetual klutz, clumsy enough to trip over a shadow, yet with some unusual skills, such as his ability to make and stack "water balls". Clumsy Carp was patterned after Jack Caprio. Curls: a master of sarcastic wit. Curls was patterned after Hart's friend from Richard Boland. Grog: pure Id, a caveman's caveman, he is a primitive, semi-evolved wild man with a one-word vocabulary and enough strength to knock the sun out of the sky using a golf ball.
The Guru: an unnamed, bearded wise man living like a hermit atop a mountain, whence he dispenses wisdom and sarcasm. John the Turtle and the Dookie Bird: this prehistoric odd couple are inseparable friends when making their annual trek south for the winter; the Dookie Bird rides on John's back. The Snake: the put-upon, mortal enemy of the Fat Broad; the Eatanter: eats ants with a sticky, elastic tongue and a ZOT! sound. Hart drew something of a hybrid—with the long ears of an aardvark and the bushy tail of a giant anteater. Maude: an ant, a nagging wife with a smart-alec son and a quarrelsome, straying husband. Jake: ant husband of Maude, always threatening to run off with Shirley. Queen Ida: the queen ant, an unfeeling and abusive dictator; the Dinosaur: big but not too bright—a sort of sauropod with spinal plates like a stegosaurus. Sometimes called Gronk, the only sound he makes; the Clams: talking clams with legs, among other appendages. The Apteryx: a "wingless bird with hairy feathers," as he invariably introduces himself.
The Turkey: makes his yearly appearance at Thanksgiving time. Oynque: the turkey's porcine partner in crime seen without his trademark mud puddle. Wolf: the newest B. C. character, debuted August 24, 2009. A blissfully deviant domestication of Precambrian fur. Man's first friend. Various incidental ants, including a schoolteacher and her students. Raptors: velociraptors that try to eat the other ch
Publishers-Hall Syndicate
Publishers-Hall Syndicate was a newspaper syndicate founded by Robert M. Hall in 1944. Hall served as the company's general manager. Over the course of its operations, the company was known as, the Hall Syndicate, the New York Post Syndicate, the Post-Hall Syndicate, the Hall Syndicate, Publishers-Hall Syndicate; the syndicate was acquired by Field Enterprises in 1967, merged into Field Newspaper Syndicate in 1975. Some of the more notable strips syndicated by the company include Pogo, Dennis the Menace, Funky Winkerbean, Mark Trail, The Strange World of Mr. Mum, Momma, as well as the cartoons of Jules Feiffer. Hall had worked for The Providence Journal during high school, followed by three years at Northeastern University School of Law and four years at Brown University. After attending the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, he was a sales manager at United Feature Syndicate, which he joined in 1935. During the final months of World War II, Hall began his own syndicate by distributing to newspapers several New York Post features, including Earl Wilson's "It Happened Last Night," Sylvia Porter's finance column, "Your Money's Worth" and Samuel Grafton's "I'd Rather Be Right."
Soon, Hall developed his own features, including a variety of comic strips, Debbie Dean, Mark Trail and Bruce Gentry, along with Herblock's editorial cartoons. Added to the mix were serialized books and columns, including Elise Morrow's "Capital Capers," Pierre de Rohan's "Man in the Kitchen," Sterling North's book reviews, Jimmy Cannon's sports column and Major George Fielding Eliot writing on defense and tactics; the company was incorporated as the New York Post Syndicate in August 1946. New features added in 1948–49 included Walt Kelly's Pogo, the adventure strip Tex Austin, Victor Riesel's "Inside Labor" column and a facts panel, Wizard of Odds. On March 1, 1949, the company was renamed as the Post-Hall Syndicate, Inc. and during the 1950s, it distributed the writings of Norman Vincent Peale. The name was shortened to the Hall Syndicate after Robert Hall bought out the Post in 1955. Jules Feiffer's strips ran for 42 years in The Village Voice, first under the title Sick Sick Sick as Feiffer's Fables and as Feiffer.
Influenced by UPA and William Steig, the strip debuted October 24, 1956. Three years beginning April 1959, Feiffer was distributed nationally by the Hall Syndicate in The Boston Globe, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Newark Star-Ledger and Long Island Press. In 1967, the company was sold to Field Enterprises, who merged it with the acquired Publishers Syndicate to form the Publishers-Hall Syndicate, thus taking on distribution of such popular, long-running strips as Mary Worth, Steve Roper, Kerry Drake, Rex Morgan, M. D. Judge Parker, Miss Peach, B. C. and The Wizard of Id. In 1968, when the company began distributing John Saunders & Al McWilliams' Dateline: Danger!, it became the first nationally syndicated comic strip with an African-American lead character. John McMeel was assistant general manager and national sales director for the syndicate when he left in 1970 to co-found what would become Andrews McMeel Universal. In 1975, Publishers-Hall was named Field Newspaper Syndicate. Strips and panels that originated with the New York Post Syndicate, the Hall Syndicate, or the Post-Hall Syndicate: Andy Capp by Reg Smythe Big George by Virgil Partch Bruce Gentry by Ray Bailey Dateline: Danger! by John Saunders & Al McWilliams David Crane by Win Mortimer and Creig Flessel Debbie Dean by Bert Whitman Dennis the Menace by Hank Ketcham Funky Winkerbean by Tom Batiuk Jules Feiffer Louie by Harry Hanan Mark Trail by Ed Dodd Modesty Blaise by Peter O'Donnell & Jim Holdaway Momma by Mell Lazarus Pogo by Walt Kelly The Ryatts by Cal Alley, continued by Jack Elrod The Strange World of Mr. Mum by Irving Phillips Tex Austin by Sam Robins & Tom Fanning Toni Mendez
Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse is a funny animal cartoon character and the mascot of The Walt Disney Company. He was created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at the Walt Disney Studios in 1928. An anthropomorphic mouse who wears red shorts, large yellow shoes, white gloves, Mickey is one of the world's most recognizable characters. Created as a replacement for a prior Disney character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Mickey first appeared in the short Plane Crazy, debuting publicly in the short film Steamboat Willie, one of the first sound cartoons, he went on to appear in over 130 films, including The Band Concert, Brave Little Tailor, Fantasia. Mickey appeared in short films, but occasionally in feature-length films. Ten of Mickey's cartoons were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, one of which, Lend a Paw, won the award in 1942. In 1978, Mickey became the first cartoon character to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Beginning in 1930, Mickey has been featured extensively as a comic strip character.
His self-titled newspaper strip, drawn by Floyd Gottfredson, ran for 45 years. Mickey has appeared in comic books such as Disney Italy's Topolino, MM - Mickey Mouse Mystery Magazine, Wizards of Mickey, in television series such as The Mickey Mouse Club and others, he appears in other media such as video games as well as merchandising and is a meetable character at the Disney parks. Mickey appears alongside his girlfriend Minnie Mouse, his pet dog Pluto, his friends Donald Duck and Goofy, his nemesis Pete, among others. Though characterized as a cheeky lovable rogue, Mickey was rebranded over time as a nice guy seen as an honest and bodacious hero. In 2009, Disney began to rebrand the character again by putting less emphasis on his friendly, well-meaning persona and reintroducing the more menacing and stubborn sides of his personality, beginning with the video game Epic Mickey. "I only hope that we never lose sight of one thing – that it was all started by a mouse." Mickey Mouse was created as a replacement for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, an earlier cartoon character created by the Disney studio for Charles Mintz, a film producer who distributed product through Universal Studios.
In the spring of 1928, with the series going strong, Disney asked Mintz for an increase in the budget. But Mintz instead demanded that Walt take a 20 percent budget cut, as leverage, he reminded Disney that Universal owned the character, revealed that he had signed most of Disney's current employees to his new contract. Angrily, Disney refused the deal and returned to produce the final Oswald cartoons he contractually owed Mintz. Disney was determined to restart from scratch; the new Disney Studio consisted of animator Ub Iwerks and a loyal apprentice artist, Les Clark, who together with Wilfred Jackson were among the few who remained loyal to Walt. One lesson Disney learned from the experience was to thereafter always make sure that he owned all rights to the characters produced by his company. In the spring of 1928, Disney asked Ub Iwerks to start drawing up new character ideas. Iwerks tried sketches of various animals, such as dogs and cats, but none of these appealed to Disney. A female cow and male horse were rejected.
They would turn up as Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar. A male frog was rejected, it would show up in Iwerks' own Flip the Frog series. Walt Disney got the inspiration for Mickey Mouse from a tame mouse at his desk at Laugh-O-Gram Studio in Kansas City, Missouri. In 1925, Hugh Harman drew some sketches of mice around a photograph of Walt Disney; these inspired Ub Iwerks to create a new mouse character for Disney. "Mortimer Mouse" had been Disney's original name for the character before his wife, convinced him to change it, Mickey Mouse came to be. The actor Mickey Rooney claimed that, during his Mickey McGuire days, he met cartoonist Walt Disney at the Warner Brothers studio, that Disney was inspired to name Mickey Mouse after him; this claim, has been debunked by Disney historian Jim Korkis, since at the time of Mickey Mouse's development, Disney Studios had been located on Hyperion Avenue for several years, Walt Disney never kept an office or other working space at Warner Brothers, having no professional relationship with Warner Brothers, as the Alice Comedies and Oswald cartoons were distributed by Universal.
Disney had Ub Iwerks secretly begin animating a new cartoon while still under contract with Universal. The cartoon was co-directed by Ub Iwerks. Iwerks was the main animator for the short and spent six weeks working on it. In fact, Iwerks was the main animator for every Disney short released in 1928 and 1929. Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising assisted Disney during those years, they had signed their contracts with Charles Mintz, but he was still in the process of forming his new studio and so for the time being they were still employed by Disney. This short would be the last. Mickey was first seen in a test screening of the cartoon short Plane Crazy, on May 15, 1928, but it failed to impress the audience and, to add insult to injury, Walt could not find a distributor. Though understandably disappointed, Walt went on to produce a second Mickey short, The Gallopin' Gaucho, not released for lack of a distributor. Steamboat Willie was first released on November 1928, in New York, it was co-directed by Ub Iwerks.
Iwerks again served as the head animator, assisted by Johnny Cannon, Les Clark, Wilfred Jackson and Dick Lundy. This short was intended as a parody of Buster Keaton'
