MCCAY, WINSOR

born Sept. 26, 1869, Spring Lake, Mich., U.S. died July 26, 1934 American artist who was a pioneer of cartoon films. After working as a cartoonist on several newspapers, including the New York Herald, he made an animated film of his comic strip hero Little Nemo, inspired by the work of Emile Cohl and J. Stuart Blackton, which proved to be a great success. This cartoon film was followed by Gertie the Dinosaur (1909), the final version of which included 10,000 drawings, and by many other short cartoons, which McCay used in his vaudeville act. His first feature-length animated films were The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918) and The Flying House (1920).