Winsor McCay
In 1914 vaudeville audiences were captivated as a man stood before a motion-picture screen, directing a cartoon dinosaur through a series of tricks. The animated movie had been born, and its father was Winsor McCay.
Winsor McCay was born in 1867 in Canada. McCay had an early interest in drawing but was sent to business college in Detroit by his parents. While studying he worked as a portrait artist in a "Dime Museum". After leaving school at the age of 21, McCay went to work at the National Printing Company of Chicago as a commercial artist. He moved to Cincinatti, married and took a job as a cartoonist/reporter for the Cinncinati Commercial Tribune where he created his first experimental comic strip, "Tales of The Jungle Imps by Felix Fiddle", based on poems by George Chester. In 1903 he moved his family to New York to work for the the New York Herald. MCay continued to experiment with original strips, developing the popular strips "Little Sammy Sneeze" and "Dream of a Rarebit Fiend" in 1904. In 1905 McCay began his most famous work, "Little Nemo in Slumberland", a comic strip that was made into a Broadway musical at the time and has since inspired countless other works. McCay, who was already extremely popular, began performing on the Vaudeville stage. He was also producing regular editorial cartoons as well as several daily strips.
William Randolph Hearst hired the popular artist to work for his newspaper, the New York American. McCay's arrival was a much publicized event. While working for Hearst, MCay added animated movies to his vaudeville act. Initially he used the popular characters from the "Little Nemo" strip, then produced a humorous short, "How a Mosquito Operates". In 1914 McCay introduced "Gertie The Dinosaur". Rather than just showing the film, as he had with his previous shorts, McCay interacted with Gertie, giving directions and responding to her actions. The act was a great success and is the first original character developed solely for the animated cartoon and not based on a pre-existing comic strip.
Hearst used McCay's contract to forbid him to perform in vaudeville, and Gertie was made into a feature film with a live-action prologue and epilogue and shown around the world. Hearst eventually forbid McCay from even doing daily strips, restricting him to editorial cartoons. McCay continued producing animated films, however, producing "The Sinking Of The Lusitania" and six other films through 1921.
McCay continued to draw editorial cartoons until his death by stroke on July 26th, 1934.
written by Andy Etris 2000
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