Cover of Mickey Mouse Weekly NO. 1, 1936
Henry Wilfred Haughton was born in Lambeth, London, in the first quarter of 1894, the son of a printer compositor. He served in the First World War, then studied art at Regent Street Polytechnic before becoming a cartoonist, contributing to Punch and the Daily Mail.
He got work with Odhams Press, and in 1922 started his first comic strip, Ebb and Flo, for Odham's Daily Herald. He also worked for toy manufacturer W. H. Cornelius, were he designed licensed Disney toys. This led to him drawing half of the first Mickey Mouse Annual in 1930. He was in full charge of later annuals, which he drew in a style combining the influences of American Mickey Mouse artist Floyd Gottfredson and British music hall. Starting in 1936, he drew the full colour covers for Odhams' Mickey Mouse Weekly, as well as internal strips like "Goofy and Toby". He also drew Bobby Bear annuals from 1932 to 1939.
He became a staff artist at Odhams, responsible for assessing the work of new artists, but he left in 1943. One common story was that he was sacked for refusing to adapt his work to the new American character models. Another is that he was offered a job with Disney in the USA, and while he wasn't prepared to fly during wartime, he realised he was in demand, and this is what caused Odhams to fall out with him.
I have no information on what happened to him after this. He is said to have died around 1980, but I have no confirmation of that.
References[]
- Alan Clark, Dictionary of British Comic Artists, Writers and Editors, The British Library, 1998, pp. 74-75
- David Gerstein and Alberto Becattini, "The Heirs of Gottfredson: The 1930s School", in David Gerstein & Gary Groth (eds), Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Volume 3: High Noon at Inferno Gulch, Fantagraphics, 2012, pp. 266-269
