Winsor McCay

Hannover

Winsor McCay (1869 – 1934) was an American cartoonist and animator. His pioneering early animated films far outshone the work of his contemporaries, and set a standard followed by Walt Disney and others in later decades. His two best-known creations are the newspaper comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland, which ran from 1905–1914 and 1924–1927, and the animated cartoon Gertie the Dinosaur, which he created in 1914.

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. 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.

Giving an overview of the complexity of his work, the exhibition Winsor McCay (1869-1934): Comics, Filme, Träume in the Wilhelm Busch Museum in Hannover currently shows 180 art works of McCay.

Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst

March 11th – June 3rd, 2012
Georgengarten
30167 Hannover
Germany

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