'Snorre Singel', from Stupido magazine.
Gaute Moe is a Norwegian comic creator, who debuted in the 1990s as an artist and writer for the satirical magazine Stupido. Since 2008, he has been a prominent writer of Disney comics for the Scandinavian and Dutch Disney magazines, working with a great variety of characters.
Early life and career
Born in 1972, Gaute Arnkværn Moe attended Lørenskog Upper Secondary School in one of Oslo's suburbs. During the 1990s, he did freelance work for the publishing house Ide & Strek, contributing to their adult humor magazines Stupido (1991-1998), Bare Kødd (1994-1998) and Sex og Rør (1993-1995). Especially in Stupido, he had recurring features like 'Snorre Singel' and 'Badevaktorna'. In Norway, Stupido magazine was a direct competitor to the humor magazine Pyton, which was launched in 1986. Ironically, in Finland, Moe's Stupido features appeared in Myrkky, the Finnish edition of Pyton magazine, where they had the titles 'Torsti Pörsti' and 'Rantsuvahdit'.
From the 1990s on, Gaute Moe tried his hand at several odd jobs in the Oslo region, including forest worker, postman and subway conductor. In addition, he was employed by the alcoholic beverages retailer Vinmonopolet, as well as a curtain board factory. Since 2008, he has had a steady job with the Oslo public transport operator Sporveien Oslo AS, where he has been a tram driver and subway parts warehouse worker. In his spare time, Moe picked up cartooning again, but this time only as a writer.
Script by Gaute Moe for a 'Detective Donald' story.
Disney comics
In 2008, Gaute Moe offered his services to the Danish Disney publisher Egmont by submitting seven gag pages with Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge. When his scripts were accepted, a versatile second career as a writer of Disney comics took off. For Egmont, Moe has written a great many mid-length stories (3-7 pages) with Donald Duck and his family. Two years after his debut at Egmont, Gaute Moe also contacted the Dutch licensee of Disney comics, Sanoma, who were also eager to accept his scripts. Since then, he has been writing about 20-30 Disney comics a year.
Characterized by an absurd sense of humor, Gaute Moe has tackled almost every Disney character available while giving their universe a fresh and original approach. For Donald Duck, he invented a subseries in which the unlucky duck appears as a retro noir-esque detective in trenchcoat, who types out his cases on an old-fashioned typewriter. While mostly writing from his own initiative, he has also done specially commissioned stories, for instance for the 2022 special issue about Duckburg's neighboring town Gooseville, where a meal delivery pidgeon called Dokus Duif appears to have a very similar life to Donald Duck.
Script starring the Gooseville Donald Duck counterpart "Dokus Duif" (storycode H2022-177).
For the Dutch Disney magazines at Sanoma (and later DPG Media), Moe could also try his hand at secondary characters, from Mickey Mouse and Goofy to the Big Bad Wolf and Madam Mim. For the chipmunks Chip 'n' Dale, he crafted a little forest society with recurring characters in the tradition of the Franco-Belgian comic creator Raymond Macherot. In the Netherlands, Gaute Moe also initiated a new wave of original comic stories based on Disney's movie properties, writing scripts with 'Robin Hood', 'Peter Pan', 'Jungle Book', 'The Seven Dwarfs' and 'The Rescuers'.
Chip 'n' Dale and their forest universe (script for story H2024-274).