A smiling cartoon mouse with mickey mouse cupcakes ears, red shorts with white buttons, white gloves, and yellow shoes. Mickey Mouse is an animated cartoon character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. Beginning in 1930, Mickey has also been featured extensively in comic strips and comic books.

The Mickey Mouse comic strip, drawn primarily by Floyd Gottfredson, ran for 45 years. Concept art of Mickey from early 1928, from the collection of The Walt Disney Family Museum. The sketches are the earliest known drawings of the character. Mickey Mouse was created as a replacement for Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, an earlier cartoon character that was created by the Disney studio but owned by Universal Pictures. Mickey Mouse was conceived in secret while Disney produced the final Oswald cartoons he contractually owed Mintz. Disney asked Ub Iwerks to start drawing up new character ideas.