Winsor McCay

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Winsor McCay
Born Zenas Winsor McKay
c. (1869-09-26)September 26, 1869[1]
Spring Lake, Michigan[1]
Died July 26, 1934(1934-07-26) (aged 64)[1]
Brooklyn, New York[1]
Occupation Animator, cartoonist
Influenced William Joyce, André LeBlanc, Mœbius, Maurice Sendak, Chris Ware, Bill Watterson
Spouse(s) Maude Leonore Dufour (m. 1891–1934)
Children Bob McCay and Marion McCay
Parents Robert McKay and Janet Murray McKay

Winsor Zenic McCay (c. September 26, 1869 – July 26, 1934) was an American cartoonist and animator, best known for the comic strip Little Nemo (begun 1905) and the animated cartoon Gertie the Dinosaur (1914). For legal reasons, he worked under the pen name Silas on the comic strip Dream of the Rarebit Fiend.

McCay was a prolific artist and his pioneering early animated films far outshone the work of his contemporaries. His films set a standard followed by Walt Disney and others in later decades. His comic strip work has influenced generations of artists, including William Joyce, André LeBlanc, Mœbius, Maurice Sendak, Chris Ware, and Bill Watterson.[2]

Contents

[edit] Early life

Little Sammy Sneeze

Winsor McCay was born Zenas Winsor McKay. He claimed to have been born in Spring Lake, Michigan in 1871, but his gravestone says 1869 and census reports state that he was born in Canada in 1867. He was the son of Janet Murray McKay and Robert McKay, who at various times worked as a teamster, a grocer, and a real estate agent. Winsor was named after his father's employer, Zenas G. Winsor, and he quickly dropped Zenas in favor of Winsor. He was raised in Michigan, where he began drawing at an early age. At the age of 13 he drew a picture of a shipwreck on the school blackboard; it was photographed and copies were sold. His attention to (and memory of) detail was known to be advanced.[3]

In 1886, McCay's parents sent him to Cleary's Business College in Ypsilanti, Michigan to learn to be a businessman. While in Ypsilanti, he also received his only formal art training, from John Goodison of Michigan State Normal College (now known as Eastern Michigan University). Goodison taught him the strict application of the fundamentals of perspective, which he put to significant use later in his career.

[edit] Career

In 1889, McCay moved to Chicago, intending to study at the Art Institute of Chicago, but due to lack of money had to find employment instead. He worked for the National Printing and Engraving Company, producing woodcuts for circus and theatrical posters. Two years later, he moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, and went to work as an artist for Kohl and Middleton's Vine Street Dime museum. While in Cincinnati he married Maude Leonore Dufour. McCay began doing vaudeville chalk talks in 1906.[4] In his The Seven Ages of Man vaudeville act, he drew two faces and progressively aged them.[5]

Little Nemo in Slumberland

McCay's first major comic strip series was A Tale of the Jungle Imps by Felix Fiddle with 43 installments published from January to November 1903 in the Cincinnati Enquirer. The strip was based on poems by George Randolph Chester, then a reporter and editor at the Enquirer. The stories concerned jungle creatures and the ways that they adapted to a hostile world, with individual titles such as How the Elephant Got His Trunk and How the Ostrich Got So Tall.

His strips Little Nemo and Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, published under the pseudonym "Silas",[6] were both set in the dreams of their characters and featured fantasy art that attempted to capture the look and feel of dreams. McCay's cartoons were never overwhelmingly popular, but always had a strong following because of his expressive graphic style. Newspaper pages were physically much larger in that time and McCay usually had a half a page to work with. For fantasy art in comics, his only rival was Lyonel Feininger, who went on to have a career in the fine arts after his comics days were over.

McCay also created animated short films, in which every single frame of each cartoon (with each film requiring thousands of frames) was hand-drawn by McCay and occasionally his assistants. McCay went on vaudeville tours with his films. He presented lectures and did drawings; then he interacted with his animated films, performing such tricks as holding his hand out to "pet" his animated creations.

Gertie the Dinosaur

The star of McCay's groundbreaking animated film Gertie the Dinosaur is classified by film and animation historians as the first cartoon character created especially for film to display a unique, realistic personality. In the film, Gertie causes trouble and cries when she is scolded, and finally she gives McCay himself a ride on her back as he steps into the movie picture.

In addition to a series of cartoons based on his popular "rarebit" gags, McCay also created The Sinking of the Lusitania, about that ocean liner's 1915 sinking. The propaganda cartoon contained a message that was meant to inspire America to enter World War I.

[edit] Death and legacy

McCay died on July 26, 1934 of a cerebral embolism,[7] and was buried at the Cemetery of the Evergreens in Brooklyn.[8][9]

In 1966, Woody Gelman discovered many of the original Little Nemo strips at a cartoon studio where Bob McCay, Winsor's son, had worked. Many of the original drawings that Gelman recovered were displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art under the direction of curator A. Hyatt Mayor. In 1973, Gelman published a collection of Little Nemo strips in Italy.[10]

In 1990, the Japanese video game company Capcom released a video game for the Nintendo Entertainment System entitled Little Nemo: The Dream Master, based on the 1989 Japanese film adaptation of Little Nemo in Slumberland.

In 1994, cartoonist Rick Veitch began a 21 issue comic book entitled Roarin' Rick's Rare Bit Fiends, which included strips based on his dreams. The letters section of the comic book was titled "Little Omens".

The Italian cartoonist and Harvey Award Winner Vittorio Giardino was inspired by McCay and called one of his works, a series of erotic comic strips, Little Ego after Little Nemo.

On October 15, 2012, Google showed an animated Doodle for the 107th anniversary of Winsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland, featuring an interactive, motion picture comic strip.[11]

[edit] Comic strips

[edit] Filmography

Winsor McCay sketching at the 1908 Actors Benefit for Crippled Children.

[edit] Books and collections

Winsor McCay's World War I poster urging Americans to buy Liberty Bonds
Flip recruits the aid of his uncle the Dawn Guard to wake Little Nemo and cause Slumberland to fade away, published in March 1906
  • ———, Little Nemo in the Palace of Ice and Further Adventures, Dover, ISBN 0-486-23234-4.
  • ———, The Complete Little Nemo in Slumberland, I: 1905–1907, Fantagraphics, ISBN 0-930193-63-6.
  • ———, The Complete Little Nemo in Slumberland, II: 1907–1908, Fantagraphics, ISBN 0-930193-64-4.
  • ———, The Complete Little Nemo in Slumberland, III: 1908–1910, Fantagraphics, ISBN 1-56097-025-1.
  • ———, The Complete Little Nemo in Slumberland, IV: 1910–1911, Fantagraphics, ISBN 1-56097-045-6.
  • ———, The Complete Little Nemo in Slumberland, V: In the Land of Wonderful Dreams, Part 1: 1911–12, Fantagraphics, ISBN 0-924359-35-8.
  • ———, The Complete Little Nemo in Slumberland, VI: In the Land of Wonderful Dreams, Part 2: 1913–14, Fantagraphics, ISBN 1-56097-130-4.
  • ———, Little Nemo 1905–1914, Taschen, ISBN 3-8228-6300-9.
  • ———, The Best of Little Nemo in Slumberland, Stewart, Tabori, & Chang, ISBN 1-55670-647-2.
  • ———, Little Nemo in Slumberland: So Many Splendid Sundays, Sunday Press, ISBN 0-9768885-0-5.
  • ———, Little Nemo in Slumberland: Many More Splendid Sundays, Sunday Press, ISBN 0-9768885-5-6.
  • ———, Early Works, 1, Checker, ISBN 0-9741664-0-5 (“Tales of the Rarebit Fiend” and “Little Sammy Sneeze”).
  • ———, Early Works, 2, Checker, ISBN 0-9741664-7-2 (more “Tales of the Rarebit Fiend” and “Little Sammy Sneeze,” “Centaurs,” “Hungry Henrietta,” and editorial illustrations).
  • ———, Early Works, 3, Checker, ISBN 0-9741664-9-9 (more “Tales of the Rarebit Fiend” (1907), “Little Sammy Sneeze,” “A Pilgrim’s Progress,” (1907) and editorial illustrations from New York period).
  • ———, Early Works, 4, Checker, ISBN 0-9753808-1-8 (more “Dream of the Rarebit Fiend” (early 1908), “A Pilgrim’s Progress” (early 1908), various “Little Sammy Sneezes”, and “New York American” editorial cartoons).
  • ———, Early Works, 5, Checker, ISBN 0-9753808-2-6 (“Dream of the Rarebit Fiend” (late 1908), “A Pilgrim’s Progress” (late 1908), “Phoolish Phillip”, “Hungry Henrietta”, and “New York American” editorial cartoons).
  • ———, Early Works, 6, Checker, ISBN 1-933160-05-5 (“Mr Goodenough”, “Dream of the Rarebit Fiend” (late 1908), “A Pilgrim’s Progress” (late 1908), and “New York American” editorial cartoons).
  • ———, Early Works, 7, Checker, ISBN 1-933160-05-5 (illustrations from “New York” editorial period, and collection of comic strips).
  • ———, Early Works, 8, Checker, ISBN 1-933160-06-3.
  • ———, Early Works, 9, Checker, ISBN 978-1-933160-07-8.
  • ———, Daydreams and Nightmares, Fantagraphics, ISBN 1-56097-569-5.
  • ———, Little Sammy Sneeze, Sunday Press, ISBN 0-9768885-4-8.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d Haverstock, Vance & Meggitt 2000.
  2. ^ Bracero, Rocky (2008). Winsor McCay: Illustrator Turned Animator and His Influence on Pixar. Fashion Institute of Technology.
  3. ^ "Winsor McCay", JVJ Publishing Illustrators (BPib), http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/mccay.htm, retrieved 15 October 2012.
  4. ^ "Winsor McCay", Writers & production artists, Film reference, http://www.filmreference.com/Writers-and-Production-Artists-Lo-Me/McCay-Winsor.html.
  5. ^ Harrison, Mark (2003). Prime Time Animation: Television Animation and American Culture. Psychology Press. p. 3. ISBN 978-0-415-28326-7. http://books.google.com/books?id=wVWS-ukTSg0C&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=vaudeville+%22chalk+talks%22&source=bl&ots=r0hfF0KFEK&sig=iVyZ5dzWCJOY6yNhxwJCb7hxUeo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=cZ58UO79L_OxygGPvoHACg&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=vaudeville%20%22chalk%20talks%22&f=false.
  6. ^ McCay 1973, p. ix: ‘You will notice that I sign... my rarebit pictures "Silas." Well, my contract would not allow me to sign my real name when I started to draw those pictures for the New York papers and I had to make a name. An old fellow who drives a garbage cart by the New York Herald office every day is my namesake. He is a quaint character and known as Silas.’
  7. ^ "Winsor M'Cay Early Comic Artist, Dies", Syracuse Herald ( Syracuse, NY, US), July 27, 1934.
  8. ^ Masters of American Comics. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 2005. pp. 180. ISBN 0‐30011317‐X. http://books.google.com/books?isbn=030011317X.
  9. ^ "Winsor McCay". The Evergreens Cemetery. http://www.theevergreenscemetery.com/stories/entertainers/winsor-mccay/. Retrieved 15 October 2012.
  10. ^ Jamieson, David ‘Dave’ (2010), Mint Condition: How Baseball Cards Became an American Obsession, Atlantic Monthly Press, p. 126, ISBN 978-0-8021-1939-1.
  11. ^ Hom, Jennifer (15 October 2012). "107th Anniversary of Little Nemo in Slumberland". Doodles. Google. http://www.google.com/doodles/107th-anniversary-of-little-nemo-in-slumberland. Retrieved 16 October 2012.
  12. ^ Hungry Henrietta, The Story of, Barnacle Press, http://www.barnaclepress.com/list.php?directory=HungryHenrietta, retrieved July 9, 2012.

[edit] Sources

[edit] Further reading

[edit] External links

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