Artist research - Winsor McCay

Winsor McCay

Winsor Mccay is an American newspaper cartoonist who takes an important role in animation history. Although he is not the founder of animation, he brought many technical innovations that animators still use today.

As a comics artist McCay made several series featuring characters having dreams or nightmares. He devoted large colourful drawings to these fantasy sequences, printed out over entire newspaper pages. Out of all his comics 'Dream of the Rarebit Fiend' (1904-1911, 1913) and 'Little Nemo in Slumberland' (1905-1914) are his masterpieces.

As an animator he adapted his own comics into short films. His animated cartoons, ‘How a Mosquito Operates’ (1912), 'Gertie the Dinosaur' (1914) and 'The Sinking of the Lusitania' (1917), are famous and well-known. He not only pioneered the "inbetweening" technique, but was also the first to achieve realistic movement in animation.

Early life / Early work

He was born in Spring Lake, Michigan, on 26 September 1869. He didn’t complete grade school, but his teacher’s art instruction suggested him about art and drawing. Since he had already enjoyed drawing since he was young, he went to Chicago for art lessons and started designing posters for the Kohl & Middleton Dime Museum and Ph. Morton's printing and lithography company at age 17. In 1897, he became a cartoonist for the Cincinnati Times-Star and ending up at the Cincinnati Enquirer.

After that, McCay created his first work, 'A Tale of the Jungle Imps by Felix Fiddle' (1903), then he moved to New York City and joined Evening Telegram and Life Magazine, drawing several cartoons and other illustration work under the pseudonym "Silas". In 1904, he created two successful comic strips, Little Sammy Sneeze and Dream of the Rarebit Fiend. The following year McCay debuted his most renowned creation, the strip Little Nemo in Slumberland, which is his masterpiece in comic.

His works

Strip Comic

Little Nemo in slumberland (1905-1914)

This is one the most successful work of McCay. The character was inspired by McCay's own son, Bob McCay. The story is about the character named ‘Nemo’ falling asleep and awakening from a nightmare. he wanders through Slumberland until he finds himself in a nightmare situation from which he brutally wakes up.

McCay had took full advantage of his Sunday pages. He experimented with colour, perspective and even the lay-out of the pages. This made 'Little Nemo in Slumberland' also the earliest example of a comic strip receiving serious attention from critics and being perceived as actual art. It was later adapted into theatrical play in 1907-1910. He also adapted it into a short animation.

Animation

Little Nemo (1911)

For ‘Little Nemo’, his original inspiration came from his son playing with flipbook, which made him came up with the idea of using the motion from the flipbook on separate film frames. After that, he proceeded to use 4,000 pieces of rice paper for his original cartoon, inventing the idea of numbering each drawing to maintain the sequencing. He mounted the rice paper on cardboard to facilitate shooting, then used a rotary machine to flip the cards so he could check the animation. The final piece is just a 4-minutes length animation that didn’t tell the story, but with the announcement in there that showed how his cartoon were moving, it looked amazing and pleased the audience’s eyes.

How a Mosquito Operates (1912)

A year later, he decided to try another short film, which is ‘How a Mosquito Operates’. The mosquito is rendered with comic exaggeration, but with realistic details. He also added a personality to the character and the story to the animation. This time he made six thousand drawings and introduced the idea of repeated cycles of animation loops. The new techniques he had presented brought its success later.

Gertie the Dinosaur (1914)

This time, he bought in an assistant, John A. Fitzsimmons, to draw the backgrounds. McCay then produced one of the critical techniques in animation by doing the transitional points of animation (called key frames) first, to help lay out the overall action of the cartoon. He then went back and did what is called “inbetweening” or “tweening”, which later became a common technique used in animation studio today. McCay also invented the use of registration marks in the corners of the paper, so as to help maintain stability of the image when the actual photography took place. After all his hard work, he was able to create Gertie the Dinosaur.

This cartoon was really innovative and interactive. The animation acted as McCay actually called Gertie and made the audience thought she was real by interacting with her. This was a one of a worldwide success.

Sources

James, R. (2014), Animation History: Winsor McCay and Gertie. Retrieved November 6, 2020, from https://www.artograph.com/infocus/winsormccay/

Ray, M.(n.d.), Winsor McCay. Retrieved November 6, 2020, from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Winsor-McCay

Knuddle, K. (2020), Winsor McCay. Retrieved November 6, 2020, from https://www.lambiek.net/artists/m/mccay.htm

Personal Response

I think he was one of the most important person in American animation, as he presented new techniques such as separating foreground and background frames, inbetweening technique, looping, and registration marks on paper. Even his works are not my ideal, it shows how animation career has developed throughout the history. One thing I like about his work is his realistic style. It makes the animation look more realistic even it’s a cartoon. On the other hand, I don’t like how he looped some actions. Sometime looping helps the gesture of the character looked funny, but too many loops make it feel weird and duplicated.