Winsor McCay

Zenas Winsor McCay c?186671 July 26 1934 was an American cartoonist and animator He is best known for the comic strip Little Nemo 190514 192426 and the animated film Gertie the Dinosaur 1914 For contractual reasons he worked under the pen name Silas on the comic strip Dream of the Rarebit Fiend McCay was an early animation pioneer between 1911 and 1921 he selffinanced and animated ten films some of which survive only as fragments The first three served in his vaudeville act Gertie the Dinosaur was an interactive routine in which McCay appeared to give orders to a trained dinosaur McCay and his assistants worked for twentytwo months on his most ambitious film The Sinking of the Lusitania 1918 a patriotic recreation of the German torpedoing in 1915 of the RMS Lusitania Lusitania did not enjoy as much commercial success as the earlier films and McCays later movies attracted little attention His animation vaudeville and comic strip work was gradually curtailed as newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst his employer since 1911 expected McCay to devote his energies to editorial illustrations In his drawing McCay made bold prodigious use of linear perspective particularly in detailed architecture and cityscapes He textured his editorial cartoons with copious fine hatching and made color a central element in Little Nemo His comic strip work has influenced generations of cartoonists and illustrators The technical level of McCays animationits naturalism smoothness and scalewas unmatched until the work of Fleischer Studios in the late 1920s followed by Walt Disneys feature films in the 1930s He pioneered inbetweening the use of registration marks cycling and other animation techniques that were to become standard Description above from the Wikipedia article Winsor McCay licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia