Winsor McCay
Subtitle: his life and art
By: John Canemaker ; foreword by Maurice Sendak.
Edition: Rev. and expanded ed.
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
Published: 2005
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 271
Subjects: McCay, Winsor.; Cartoonists -- United States -- Biography.
Genres: Biography.
Description: John Canemaker reviews and fully analyzes McCay's achievements in print and film, examining his work in relation to his life, his family, and to American culture and values of the period. Original art from all the McCay's endeavors and rare personal photographs provide a visual counterpart to Canemaker's fascinating text. Begining with McCay's childhood in pioneer-era Michigan, circa 1870, this biography moves on through his earliest attempts to find an artistic voice in Chicago and turn-of-the-century Cincinnati, his work with circus posters, as a quick-sketch newspaper reporter, as a headliner chalk-talk artist in vaudeville, as crown jewel in William Randolph Hearst's grand line-up of newspaper cartoonists, and as the greatest of the early animators. McCay's masterpiece is the epic Little Nemo in Slumberland (1905), a beautiful and surreal fantasy rendered in stunning art nouveau line and subtle yet daring colour, and designed with layouts that anticipate cinematic storytelling techniques. McCay's ten animated films, among them How a Mosquito Operates (1912) and Gertie the Dinosaur (1914), remain landmarks in the history of this art and were unmatched in the fluid movement and personality of the characters until the mature films of Walt Disney came along two decades later.--Adapted from jacket.
Notes: Originally published in 1987 by Abbeville Press, New York.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 265-266) and index.
Table of contents: title: Contents; title: Foreword by Maurice Sendak
pagenum: 7; title: Preface and Acknowledgments
pagenum: 8; title: Introduction
pagenum: 11; title: First Phase: 1867-1903
pagenum: 19; title: 1. Michigan Years
pagenum: 20; title: 2. Chicago to Cincinnati
pagenum: 32; title: 3. Cincinnati Years
pagenum: 42; title: Second Phase: 1903-1911
pagenum: 67; title: 4. New York and the Great Comic Strips
pagenum: 68; title: 5. Sheepshead Bay
pagenum: 124; title: 6. Vaudeville
pagenum: 130; title: 7. Little Nemo on Broadway
pagenum: 140; title: Third Phase: 1911-1934
pagenum: 155; title: 8. Animated Films
pagenum: 156; title: 9. A Hearst Man
pagenum: 200; title: 10. After McCay
pagenum: 250; title: Notes
pagenum: 260; title: Chronology
pagenum: 263; title: Selected Bibliography
pagenum: 265; title: Index
pagenum: 266