Dogfaces (comics)

{{Short description|Name given to extras appearing in the Mickey Mouse universe}}

File:Dogface.jpg series (Gold Rush Daze in 1939), in which dogfaces were common generic characters in the 1930s.]]

Dogfaces or ‘’’Dognoses’’’ is the term used by fans to designate the anthropomorphic characters and extras in comic books, comic strips, and animated cartoons.{{cite book |last=Andrae |first=Thomas |title=Carl Barks and the Disney Comic Book: Unmasking the Myth of Modernity |date=2006 |publisher=University Press of Mississippi |isbn=978-1578068586 |page=128}} Dogfaces usually resemble cartoon human beings, but with some special characteristics:

• They have four digits on each hand and as few as three toes on each foot.
• They have the round black noses typical of dogs (in one Mickey Mouse comic strip, the statue of a Middle East ruler had a nose that was a giant black pearl).
• They have ears that are either pointed or droopy, like a dog's.
• They often have a prominent overbite.

The most famous dogface is probably Goofy. Bill Farmer, the current actor who voices Goofy in cartoons, suggested that Goofy is "the missing link between dog and man."{{Cite web |last=Ebert |first=Roger |title=A Goofy Movie movie review & film summary (1995) |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/a-goofy-movie-1995 |access-date=October 21, 2021 |website=rogerebert.com |quote=Is Goofy a human, or a dog? I once met Bill Farmer, who does the voice of Goofy, and he gave me the definitive answer: 'Pluto is definitely a dog. Goofy is sort of the missing link between dog and man.'}}

Cartoonist Don Rosa apologized, tongue-in-cheek, for turning Theodore Roosevelt into a dogface for the sake of consistency in The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. In such cases, it may be seen as a different artistic representation of humans: in another instance, Mickey Mouse supporting character Professor Dustibones went from dogface in his first appearance, to human.{{cite web |url=https://www.comics.org/issue/49305/ |title= Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #557 |author= |date= |work=Grand Comics Database |accessdate=December 22, 2021}}