Cartoon figures announce, via comic strip balloons, that they will move -- and move they do, in a wildly exaggerated style.
Is this the greatest cartoon you will ever see? No. But it deserves high praise for the work that went into it, especially so early in the realm of cinema and animation. Apparently it took up to four month for these images to be colored an drawn, which is a fair amount of time for only a few minutes.
Strangely, I don't think Winsor McCay is a known name today. With his comic strip (Little Nemo) and animation (Gertie the Dinosaur), he should be seen as a film pioneer, but he does not get the same sort of recognition that Melies or Edison do. (I mean, I wouldn't put him that high, either, but who else was doing animation this early on?)
Is this the greatest cartoon you will ever see? No. But it deserves high praise for the work that went into it, especially so early in the realm of cinema and animation. Apparently it took up to four month for these images to be colored an drawn, which is a fair amount of time for only a few minutes.
Strangely, I don't think Winsor McCay is a known name today. With his comic strip (Little Nemo) and animation (Gertie the Dinosaur), he should be seen as a film pioneer, but he does not get the same sort of recognition that Melies or Edison do. (I mean, I wouldn't put him that high, either, but who else was doing animation this early on?)