Tag: Winsor McCay

This month marks the 100th anniversary of Winsor McCay’s short film “Little Nemo.” It was not the first drawn animated film — J. Stuart Blackton’s “Humorous Phases of Funny Faces” preceded it by five years — but it was the film that demonstrated the potential of animation as art form. “Little Nemo” is the seed from which the great Hollywood cartoons and today’s animated blockbusters grew. An extraordinary draftsman, McCay was not only the greatest of the pioneer animators, but a master of the newspaper comic strip and an important editorial cartoonist. In a letter to cartoonist Clare Briggs, McCay declared: “The principal factor in my success has been an absolute desire to draw constantly. I never decided to be an artist. Simply, I could not stop myself from drawing. I drew for my own pleasure. I never wanted to ...