'Mickey Mouse' Sunday page of 8 April 1984 (© Disney).
Román Arámbula was a Mexican cartoonist, best known as the successor of Floyd Gottfredson on the 'Mickey Mouse' newspaper comic (1975-1989). During the 1950s, he assisted some Mexican cartoonists and in the 1970s drew several Disney adventure comics, but the majority of his career was spent as an animator for TV productions.
Early life and career
Roman Arámbula was born in 1935 in the Mexican city of Guadalajara, Jalisco, into a Mexican family with Spanish roots. His father was of Basque and his mother of Asturian descent. Arámbula was the youngest child in a large family: he had three brothers and two sisters. His father used to redraw images from comic books for his children. Discovering the fun of drawing as a young child, Arámbula was also captivated by animated cartoons, particularly loving Tex Avery's 'Droopy' and Hanna-Barbera's 'Tom & Jerry'. Influenced by Walt Disney since his childhood, he later singled out the Disney animators Fred Moore, Art Babbitt and Mark Davis as his favorite artists. In terms of comic artists, he admired Will Eisner's 'The Spirit' and Germán Butze's 'Los Supersabios'.
Roman Arámbula studied drawing and fine arts at the University of Mexico City. Once he heard that the legendary muralist painter Diego Rivera would hold a lecture there, but he originally wasn't interested since he assumed Rivera would just spout Communist propaganda. His college friends convinced him to come along and just sit next to the door. That way he could leave any time he wanted. As it so happened, Rivera only discussed art and in such a vivid way that Arámbula not only moved closer to the front of the stage, but also signed up when the artist invited ten people to attend three exclusive classes by him. At the time, Rivera was already in ill health, and he passed away two years later. However, he did teach Arámbula the value of working quickly and efficiently, preferably finishing artwork in one day. Throughout his career, Roman Arámbula was well known for being a reliable draftsman who always made his deadlines.
Early career
While still in college, Roman Arámbula drew his first professional comic strips. After reading a newspaper ad by the cartoonist Ignacio Palencia he applied and became his background assistant for a year. The young man also assisted Antonio Gutiérrez and worked for the comic books of Editorial Argumentos. After graduation, Arámbula had a job in a ceramics company, until a friend invited him to become an employee with Richard K. Tompkins' Dibujos Animadas, a Mexican animation studio specialized in TV commercials. A year later, Arámbula joined another local studio, Gamma Productions, which produced animation mostly for U.S. cartoon TV series, including Jay Ward's 'The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show' and its spin-offs 'Fractured Fairy Tales', 'Underdog', 'Dudley Do-Right' and 'Peabody & Sherman'. There, the young artist learned all the skills of the trade, including doing lay-outs, background art and storyboards.
'Undercover Elephant' story from 'Hanna-Barbera TV Stars' #2 (Marvel Comics, 1978).
When Gamma closed in 1967, Roman Arámbula illustrated several comics and children's books until he was hired by Keitz & Herndon, a small animation company in Dallas, Texas. After moving to the USA, he contributed to their educational TV series 'Jot' (1967-1989), as well as an educational animated TV special about solar panels on the Moon. In a two-part podcast interview made available on 5 August 2011 at animationguild.org, the artist mentioned he was very proud of this latter project, which required very time-consuming full animation. The TV network ABC - which broadcast the special - even sent him a congratulation letter afterwards. Nevertheless, Arámbula didn't like working in Dallas, because many people looked down on him because of his Hispanic background and thick accent. Once he tried to get a talented artist to work at Keitz & Herndon, but his bosses refused this candidate "because he was black." All these experiences convinced him to look for other horizons.
Hanna-Barbera & Filmation
In 1970, Roman Arámbula moved to Los Angeles, California, to work at Hanna-Barbera. There, the atmosphere was far more jovial, making it his favorite working place in his career. He was a lay-out artist for many of the Hanna-Barbera series, including 'Scooby-Doo', 'Help! ... It's the Hair Bear Bunch!', 'The Roman Holidays' and 'Josie and the Pussycats'. In the late 1970s, Arámbula also drew comic stories based on some of these shows for Marvel Comics, including 'Laff-a-Lympics' (1978-1979) and 'Undercover Elephant' (in 'TV Stars', 1978). Between 1972 and 1973, Arámbula worked for Filmation's TV specials 'Treasure Island' and 'Oliver Twist'.
'The Discount of Monty Cristo!' ('Laff-A-Lympics' #6, 1978).
Disney comics
In 1971, Arámbula started working for the Walt Disney Company's comic story production for their foreign licensees, the so-called "Studio Program". His regular inker was Steve Steere, and together they worked on at least eleven stories with 'Donald Duck' and his family. However, after four years, Arámbula was "tired of the rat race in America" and felt he couldn't pay the bills any longer, as he described in the previously mentioned podcast interview. The Mexican artist had connections in Europe and considered moving there altogether. His friend René Goscinny offered him to come to Paris and work at his animation studio Studio Idéfix on the animated feature 'The 12 Tasks of Astérix' (1976). Just when Arámbula started planning his voyage, Disney gave him a more lucrative and permanent offer.
Italian publication of the 'Donald Duck' story 'Over Loaded' (S71218, © Disney).
Mickey Mouse
One day, his bosses at Disney asked Arámbula to draw some comic panels. They also asked him whether he preferred Mickey or Donald. He chose Mickey and so was handed a script starring the famous mouse to draw. After receiving praise for the finished work, he was offered the chance to take over the daily 'Mickey Mouse' newspaper comic from legendary cartoonist Floyd Gottfredson, who had drawn the feature for the past 35 years straight. Arámbula instantly took the offer and gave up his plans of moving to Europe. His first 'Mickey' episode appeared in print on 15 November 1975. By the time Arámbula drew 'Mickey Mouse', the newspaper comic had already abandoned using longer storylines in favor of simple, self-contained gags. During his run, Arámbula didn't add new characters and just continued with the regular cast members created by Gottfredson and his scriptwriters. Originally, he was only in charge of the daily episodes. Until 1981, the 'Mickey' Sunday pages were still drawn by Manuel Gonzales, after which Daan Jippes, Tony Strobl and Bill Wright took over for another year. From 1983 on, Arámbula also drew the Sunday episodes. Throughout his tenure, Arámbula illustrated gags written by Del Connell and, from 1984 on, Floyd Norman. Among his inkers between 1983 and 1989 were Bill Wright, Bill Langley, Jules Coenen and Larry Mayer. While on occasion some colleagues filled in on episodes for him, the busy artist was respected for always reaching his deadlines.
'Mickey Mouse' daily of 10 August 1977, starring Goofy (© Disney).
Roman Arámbula drew 'Mickey Mouse' for almost 15 years. Unfortunately, in the summer of 1987 an incident occurred, which the artist described in detail on the 2011 animationguild podcast interview. His supervisor insisted that Arámbula would be at work the next week, even though it was a national holiday, namely the 4th of July. When he asked his boss why he was expected to be there, he simply snapped back to "not argue with him." Arámbula again tried to get a clear reason, but was then accused of being a "troublemaker". The so-called "troublemaker" filed a grievance complaint and consulted his union. It didn't take long before Arámbula received a warning letter from Disney executives. Indeed, when his contract expired in 1989 he was succeeded by Rick Hoover, who continued both the daily and Sunday pages of 'Mickey Mouse' until 1993. Still, since Arámbula had worked so many weeks ahead, his actual final 'Mickey' page appeared in print on 6 January 1990. And even though he did some work for Disney's animation department during the 1990s, he found out that he couldn't get a permanent job there, because he was still blacklisted over the incident.
Recognition
In 1984, Roman Arámbula won an Inkpot Award.
Final years and death
In his later career, Arámbula returned to the animation industry. He became a teacher in animation at Mt. San Antonio College and worked as a storyboard artist and assistant-director for companies like Hyperion Pictures ('The Oz Kids'), Marvel Animation ('Little Shop of Horrors'), Warner Bros Animation ('Pinky and the Brain', 'Taz-Mania', 'The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries', 'Batman & Mr. Freeze: Sub-Zero'), Hanna-Barbera ('The Addams Family') and Disney ('Tailspin', '101 Dalmatians: The Series'). He also timed sequences on four 1997 episodes of Mike Judge's 'King of the Hill' series.
After his retirement, Arámbula decided to work on some personal graphic novels, but had trouble finding a publisher. The veteran passed away from a heart attack in 2020, at the age of 84.
'Mickey Mouse' Sunday comic of 27 October 1985 (© Disney).