Editing Winsor McCay (section)

===Animation (1911–1921)===
McCay said he was most proud of his animation work.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=153}} He completed ten animated films between 1911 and 1921,{{sfn|Beckerman|2003|pp=18–19}} and three more were planned.{{sfn|Harvey|1994|p=33}}

[[File:Winsor McCay 1911 Little Nemo film still.jpg|thumb|upright=2.25|center|alt=McCay seated at center, surrounded by massive stacks of paper and barrels of ink|McCay in a scene from his first animated film, ''Little Nemo'' (1911)]]

Inspired by the [[flip book]]s his son brought home,{{sfnm|1a1=Beckerman|1y=2003|p=18|2a1=Canemaker|2y=2005|2p=157}} McCay "came to see the possibility of making moving pictures"{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=157}} of his cartoons. He claimed to be "the first man in the world to make animated cartoons", though he was preceded by others such as [[James Stuart Blackton]] and [[Émile Cohl]].{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=157}} McCay made four thousand drawings on [[rice paper]] for his first animated short, which starred his ''Little Nemo'' characters. They were shot at [[Vitagraph Studios]] under Blackton's supervision. Live-action sequences were added to the beginning and end of the film, in which McCay bets his newspaper colleagues that in one month he can make four thousand drawings that move. Among those featured in these sequences were cartoonist [[George McManus]] and actor [[John Bunny]].{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=160}} ''[[Little Nemo (1911 film)|Little Nemo]]'' debuted in movie theatres on April 8, 1911, and four days later McCay began using it as part of his vaudeville act.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=160}} Its good reception motivated him to hand-color each of the frames of the originally black-and-white animation.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=163}}

[[File:Winsor McCay - Dream of the Rarebit Fiend (1909-06-05) Mosquito panel 6.png|left|thumb|alt=A giant mosquito drinks the blood of a sleeping man.|McCay based ''[[How a Mosquito Operates]]'' (1912) on the June&nbsp;5,&nbsp;1909 episode of ''[[Dream of the Rarebit Fiend]]''.]]

McCay had become frustrated with the ''Herald'', partly over money issues{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=164}} and partly because he perceived a lack of freedom.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=153}} He accepted a higher-paying offer in spring 1911 from Hearst at the ''[[New York Journal-American|New York American]]'' and took ''Little Nemo''{{'}}s characters with him. The ''Herald'' held the strip's copyright,{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=164}} but McCay won a lawsuit that allowed him to continue using the characters,{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=168}} which he did under the title ''In the Land of Wonderful Dreams''. The ''Herald'' was unsuccessful in finding another cartoonist to continue the original strip.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=164}}

McCay began work that May on his next animated film, ''[[How a Mosquito Operates]]'',{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=164}} based on a ''Rarebit Fiend'' episode from June 5, 1909,{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=167}} in which a man in bed tries in vain to defend himself from a giant mosquito, which drinks itself so full that it explodes.{{sfnm|1a1=Berenbaum|1y=2009|1p=138|2a1=Telotte|2y=2010|2p=54}} The animation is naturalistic—rather than expanding like a balloon, with each sip of blood the mosquito's abdomen swells according to its body structure.{{sfnm|1a1=Barrier|1y=2003|1p=17|2a1=Canemaker|2y=2005|2p=165}} The film was completed in January 1912,{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=164}} and McCay toured with it that spring and summer.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=167}}

[[File:Gertie the Dinosaur (retouched frame).jpg|thumb|right|alt=Gertie the Dinosaur stands between a lake and a cave.|''[[Gertie the Dinosaur]]'' (1913) was an interactive part of McCay's vaudeville act.]]

''Gertie the Dinosaur'' debuted in February 1914 as part of McCay's vaudeville act. McCay introduced Gertie as "the only dinosaur in captivity",{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=175}} and commanded the animated beast with a whip.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=175}} Gertie seemed to obey McCay, bowing to the audience, and eating a tree and a boulder, though she had a will of her own and sometimes rebelled. When McCay admonished her, she cried. McCay consoled her by throwing her an apple—in reality pocketing the cardboard prop apple as a cartoon one simultaneously appeared on screen.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=176}} In the finale, McCay walked offstage, reappeared in animated form in the film, and had Gertie carry him away.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=177}} Producer [[William Fox (producer)|William Fox]]'s Box Office Attractions obtained distribution rights to a modified version of ''Gertie'' that could be played in regular movie theaters. This version was prefaced with a live-action sequence and replaced the interactive portions with [[intertitle]]s.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=182}}

''Gertie'' was McCay's first piece of animation with detailed backgrounds.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=168}} McCay drew the foreground characters, while art student neighbor John A. Fitzsimmons traced the backgrounds.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=169}} McCay pioneered the "McCay Split System" of [[inbetweening]], in which major poses or positions were drawn first, and the intervening frames drawn after. This relieved tedium and improved the timing of the film's actions. McCay refused to patent his system,{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=171}} and was sued in 1914 by animator [[John Randolph Bray]],{{sfnm|1a1=Sito|1y=2006|1p=36|2a1=Canemaker|2y=2005|2p=172}} who took advantage of McCay's lapse by patenting many of McCay's techniques, including the use of [[Printing registration|registration marks]], tracing paper, the [[Mutoscope]] action viewer, and the [[Traditional animation#Animation loops|cycling]] of drawings to create repetitive action.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=172}} The lawsuit was unsuccessful, and there is evidence that McCay may have countersued—he thereafter received [[Royalties|royalty payments]] from Bray for licensing the techniques.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=174}}

[[File:His Best Customer.jpeg|left|thumb|upright=0.8|alt=Editorial cartoon in which Death buys bodies from War.|Hearst pressured McCay into giving up his comic strips and non-newspaper work to concentrate on editorial cartoons.<br />"His Best Customer", 1917]]

Hearst was disappointed with the quality of McCay's newspaper work. Infuriated that he couldn't reach McCay during a vaudeville performance, Hearst pulled from his papers advertising for the theatre where McCay performed.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=181}} Editor [[Arthur Brisbane]] told him that he was "a serious artist, not a comic cartoonist",{{sfnm|1a1=Heer|1y=2006a|2a1=Canemaker|2y=2005|2p=181}} and that he was to give up his comic strip work to focus on editorial illustrations.{{sfnm|1a1=Heer|1y=2006a|2a1=Canemaker|2y=2005|2p=181}} Hearst pressured McCay's agents to reduce the number of his vaudeville appearances, and he was induced to sign a contract with Hearst that limited his vaudeville appearances to greater New York,{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=182}} with occasional exceptions.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=185}} In February 1917, Hearst had McCay give up entirely on vaudeville and all other paid work outside the Hearst empire, though he was occasionally granted permission for particular shows. Hearst increased McCay's salary to cover the loss of income.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=187}}

McCay was expected to report daily to the ''American'' building, where he shared a ninth-floor office with humorist [[Arthur "Bugs" Baer]] and sports cartoonist Joe McGurk.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=204}} There, he illustrated editorials by Arthur Brisbane, who often sent back McCay's drawings with instructions for changes.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=205}} The quality of his drawings varied depending on his interest in the subject of the assignment,{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=207}} whether or not he agreed with the sentiments portrayed,{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=209}} and on events in his personal life.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=207}} For example, in March 1914 he was subjected to a blackmail plot by a Mrs. Lambkin, who was seeking a divorce from her husband. Lambkin alleged that McCay's wife Maude was seeing her husband. With McCay's level of fame, such a story would likely be in the papers, and Mrs. Lambkin and her husband told McCay that she would keep it secret for $1,000. McCay did not believe the allegations, and gave testimony at the Lambkins' divorce trial. The blackmail failed, and the divorce was not granted.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|pp=182–184}}

Hearst animation studio [[International Film Service]] began in December 1915, and brought Hearst cartoonists to the screen. McCay was initially listed as one of them, but the studio never produced anything either by his hands or featuring his creations. McCay derived satisfaction from doing the work himself. Begun in 1916, ''[[The Sinking of the Lusitania]]'' was his follow-up to ''Gertie''. The film was not a fantasy but a detailed, realistic recreation of the [[Sinking of the RMS Lusitania|1915 German torpedoing]] of the [[RMS Lusitania|RMS ''Lusitania'']]. The event counted 128 Americans among its 1,198 dead, and was a factor leading to the [[American entry into World War I]].{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=186}}

McCay's daughter Marion married military man Raymond T. Moniz, eighteen years her senior, on October 13, 1917.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=212}} She gave birth to McCay's first grandchild, Ray Winsor Moniz, on July 16, 1918.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=212}} Moniz and McCay's son Robert were called up for service when the U.S. entered World War&nbsp;I.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=212}}

[[File:The Sinking of the Lusitania (Winsor McCay, signed cel).jpg|right|thumb|alt=Cel from The Sinking of the Lusitania. Smoke billows from the sinking RMS Lusitania.|''[[The Sinking of the Lusitania]]'' (1918) required 25,000 drawings to be made over two years, and was McCay's first film to use acetate [[cel]]s.]]

McCay's self-financed ''Lusitania'' took nearly two years to complete.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=193}} With the assistance of John Fitzsimmons and Cincinnati cartoonist William Apthorp "Ap" Adams, McCay spent his off hours drawing the film on sheets of [[cellulose acetate]] (or "[[cel]]s") with white and black [[India ink]] at McCay's home.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=188}} It was the first film McCay made using cels,{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=193}} a technology animator [[Earl Hurd]] had patented in 1914; it saved work by allowing dynamic drawings to be made on one or more layers, which could be laid over a static background layer, relieving animators of the tedium of retracing static images onto drawing after drawing.{{sfn|Kundert-Gibbs|Kundert-Gibbs|2009|p=46}} McCay had the cels photographed at the Vitagraph studios.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=188}} The film was naturalistically animated, and made use of dramatic camera angles that would have been impossible in a live-action film.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=196}}

Jewel Productions released the film on July 20, 1918. Advertising touted it as "the picture that will ''never'' have a competitor";{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=193}} the film itself called McCay "the originator and inventor of <!-- capitalization in original -->Animated <!-- capitalization in original -->Cartoons"{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=193}} and drew attention to the fact that it took 25,000 drawings to complete.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=195}} ''The Sinking of the Lusitania'' did not greatly return on McCay's investment—after a few years' run in theaters, it netted $80,000.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|p=193}}

McCay continued to produce animated films using cels. By 1921, he had completed six, though three were likely never shown commercially to audiences and have survived only in fragments: ''The Centaurs'', ''Flip's Circus'', and ''Gertie on Tour''. In 1921, he released three films based on ''Dream of the Rarebit Fiend'': ''Bug Vaudeville'', in which insects and other creepy-crawlies perform on stage; ''The Pet'', in which a creature with a bottomless appetite grows enormously and terrorizes the city in a way reminiscent of ''[[King Kong (1933 film)|King Kong]]''; and ''The Flying House'', in which a man attaches wings to his house to flee from debt. McCay's son Robert is credited with the animation on this last film, but Canemaker notes it is highly unlikely that a first-time animator could have produced such an accomplished piece of animation.{{sfn|Canemaker|2005|pp=197–198}}