page_title: Winsor McCay
section_title: Later career (1921–1934)
hierarchical_section_title: Winsor McCay / Personal history / Later career (1921–1934)
caption_attribution_description: Max Fleischer plays himself in "Betty Boop's rise to fame" (1934). Screenshot.
context_page_description: Zenas Winsor McCay was an American cartoonist and animator. He is best known for the comic strip Little Nemo and the animated film Gertie the Dinosaur. For contractual reasons, he worked under the pen name Silas on the comic strip Dream of the Rarebit Fiend.
  From a young age, McCay was a quick, prolific, and technically dextrous artist. He started his professional career making posters and performing for dime museums, and in 1898 began illustrating newspapers and magazines. In 1903 he joined the New York Herald, 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 fantasy strip in an Art Nouveau style about a young boy and his adventurous dreams. The strip demonstrated McCay's strong graphic sense and mastery of color and linear perspective. McCay experimented with the formal elements of the comic strip page, arranging and sizing panels to increase impact and enhance the narrative. McCay also produced numerous detailed editorial cartoons and was a popular performer of chalk talks on the vaudeville circuit.
context_section_description: After 1921, McCay was made to give up on animation when Hearst learned he devoted more of his time to animation than to his newspaper illustrations.  Unexecuted ideas McCay had for animation projects included a collaboration with Jungle Imps author George Randolph Chester, a musical film called The Barnyard Band, and a film about the Americans' role in World War I.
  McCay's son Robert married Theresa "Tedda" Munchausen on April 9, 1921.  McCay bought them a nearby house as a wedding gift.  The couple gave McCay two more grandchildren: Janet (named after McCay's mother) in 1922, and Robert in 1928.  Robert suffered shell shock during World War I, and following the war had difficulty drawing.  McCay tried to boost his son's confidence by finding him cartooning work, and some of the elder McCay's editorial cartoons were signed "Robert Winsor McCay, Jr."
  In 1922, McCay resumed doing vaudeville shows for the Keith circuit.  He had a cameo in a newspaper office scene in the boxing film The Great White Way in early 1924.
  McCay left Hearst upon the expiration of his contract in May 1924, bitter over not having received a promised $5,000 bonus. He returned to the Herald Tribune, and brought back Little Nemo beginning that August. The new strip displayed the virtuoso technique of the old, but the panels were laid out in an unvarying grid.  Nemo took a more passive role in the stories, and there was no continuity.  The strip came to an end in December 1926, as it was not popular with readers.  Hearst executives had been trying to convince McCay to return to the American, and succeeded in 1927.  While McCay was gone, his place had been filled by Mel Cummin, who was let go after McCay's return.  Due to the lack of the 1920s Nemo's success, the Herald Tribune signed over all copyrights to the strip to McCay for one dollar.
  In 1927, McCay attended a dinner in his honor in New York. After a considerable amount of drinking, McCay was introduced by animator Max Fleischer.  McCay gave the gathered group of animators some technical advice, but when he felt the audience was not giving him attention, he berated his audience, saying, "Animation is an art.  That is how I conceived it.  But as I see, what you fellows have done with it, is making it into a trade.  Not an art, but a trade.  Bad Luck!"  That September he appeared on the radio at WNAC, and on November 2 he was interviewed by Frank Craven for The Evening Journal's Woman's Hour.  During both appearances he complained about the state of contemporary animation.
  An executive of the American Tobacco Company approached McCay in 1929 to do an advertising campaign for a financial "sum in excess of his annual salary".  Brisbane refused, noting that McCay's contract didn't allow outside work.  When the executive stormed into Brisbane's office threatening to pull American Tobacco's advertising dollars from the American, Brisbane provided a written release for the work.
  In 1932, McCay found himself in what he recalled as "the wildest ride" in his life when Hearst's son "Young Bill" drove him at 85 miles per hour (137 km/h) to the scene of the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby. They arrived there two hours after the crime was first reported to police, and were able to interview the gathered police before the grounds were closed off to the public. McCay sketched the scene, the staff, and the ladders the kidnappers used, which he was allowed to see up close.
  McCay enjoyed robust health most of his life. On July 26, 1934, he complained to his wife of a severe head-ache. To his horror, he found his right arm—his drawing arm—was paralyzed. He lost consciousness and was pronounced dead later that afternoon, with his wife, children, and son-in-law by his side. He had died of a cerebral embolism, and was buried at the Cemetery of the Evergreens in Brooklyn in a family plot. He had a Masonic funeral in his home, attended by his newspaper colleagues, Hearst and his son, and the Society of Illustrators, among others.
  Brisbane hired back Mel Cummin to replace McCay. Due to his lavish life-style, McCay left a s
caption: In 1927, McCay expressed his disappointment at the state of the animation industry at a dinner in his honor, where he was introduced by Max Fleischer (pictured).
exif: {}