* List of the stories he appears in : - D 97052 : "W.H.A.D.A.L.O.T.T.A.J.A.R.G.O.N.", from 1997, by Don Rosa.

 

* His biography :
     Charles Alfred "Al" Taliaferro was born in Montrose, Colorado on August 29, 1905.
   He entered the Disney Studios in January, 1931, and first took charge of inking the Mickey Mouse series, drawn by Floyd Gottfredson.
   From 1932 to 1939, he dealt with the Silly Symphonies,comics adaptations of the cartoons. In 1934, he drew the first comic story with Donald Duck : the comics adaptation of the Silly Symphony "The Wise Little Hen".
   In 1937, he starts drawing Donald Duck's adventures, which contributed to the success of this character. He was an extremely talented artist (one of the best) with a very distinct style which is easily recognizeable by the reader.
   He used to work with the writer Ted Osborne, and in 1937, he created Huey, Dewey, and Louie, Donald's nephews, helped by him.
   It seems like Al put his family in his Donald strips a lot : Daisy duck is said to have acted a lot like Al's wife, Lucy, while Grandma Duck was modeled after Lucy's mother, Donnie M. Wheaton, many of the adventures with Bolivar were based on true incidents with the family dog George McTavis, a Scottish terrier, and Donald's car was based on a car of one of Al's friends... Yet, this doesn't mix well with the fact that Taliaferro is only credited with the *art* of those stories in the indexes, but Al claimed, and his widow still does, that he wrote most of the gags himself though.
   He died in Glendale, California on February 3, 1969.
 

* His place in the Barks/Rosa stories universe :
    In "W.H.A.D.A.L.O.T.T.A.J.A.R.G.O.N.", a story which commemorated Huey, Dewey and Louie's 60th birthday, which tells how they entered the Junior Woodchucks, Don Rosa, wanting to honor the two great creators Taliaferro and Osborne, drew them as founding members of the Junior Woodchucks organization. On Osborne's merit badge is a typewriter, while on Taliaferro's are a pencil and  a pen. Taliaferro is said to be a "Retired Exhalted Overseer" while Osborne is  "Retired Grand Marshal"and they're both given the title of W.H.A.T.F.O.R.A.N.Y.W.A.Y., which stands for
Woodchucks Honored As The First, Original Recruits And Notable You Will Acclaim Year-round
Unfortunately, their names have been changed in many publications...
 
 

>>>Back to the real life's characters page
>>> Back to the main page