The Centaurs

The Centaurs

Zenas Winsor McCay (c. 1867–1871 – July 26, 1934) was an American cartoonist and animator. He is best known for the comic strip Little Nemo (1905–14; 1924–26) and the animated film Gertie the Dinosaur (1914). For contractual reasons, he worked under the pen name Silas on the comic strip Dream of the Rarebit Fiend.

Since a young age, McCay was a prolific, technically dextrous artist. He began as a professional by making posters and performing for dime museums, and began illustrating newspapers and magazines in 1898. He joined the New York Herald in 1903, where he created popular comic strips such as Little Sammy Sneeze and Dream of the Rarebit Fiend. In 1905, his signature strip Little Nemo in Slumberland debuted, a work which demonstrated McCay's mastery of color and perspective. At the same time, McCay was doing chalk talks on the vaudeville circuit. Between 1911 and 1921 he produced ten animated films; these included Gertie the Dinosaur, which he used as an interactive part of his vaudeville act. McCay joined William Randolph Hearst's chain of newspapers in 1911, after which his comic strip, vaudeville and animation work was gradually curtailed as Hearst expected him to devote his energies to editorial cartooning.

The technical level of McCay's animation was not matched until Walt Disney's feature films arrived in the 1930s. He pioneered inbetweening, the use of registration marks, cycling, and other animation techniques that became standard. His comic strip work has influenced generations of artists, including William Joyce, André LeBlanc, Moebius, Maurice Sendak, Chris Ware and Bill Watterson.