‘Little Sammy Sneeze’ (9 November 1904)

Winsor McCay is one of the founding fathers of newspaper comics and animated cartoons. An extraordinary virtuose artist, his vivid and technically complex drawings are still impressive today. He lifted both media out of their children’s shoes and elevated them into genuine art forms. As a comics artist McCay made several series featuring characters having dreams or nightmares. He devoted large colourful drawings to these fantasy sequences, printed out over entire newspaper pages. Out of all his comics ‘Dream of the Rarebit Fiend’ (1904-1911, 1913) and ‘Little Nemo in Slumberland’ (1905-1914) are his masterpieces. His inventive use of framing and lay-out was decades ahead of its time. As an animator he adapted his own comics into short films, with equal sophisticated brilliance. His other animated cartoons, ‘Gertie the Dinosaur’ (1914) and ‘The Sinking of the Lusitania’ (1917), are cinematic landmarks…

26 September 1869 – 26 June 1934, USA)</em