The History of Animation 3 - Winsor McCay: How a Mosquito Operates (1912)

From:
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0002260/plotsummary

"A hungry mosquito spots and follows a man on his way home. The mosquito slips into the room where the man is sleeping, and gets ready for a meal. His first attempts startle the man and wake him up, but the mosquito is very persistent."



"What is a mosquito's nature? A large man enters his flat; a mosquito in top hat with valise follows, entering through the window above door. The man goes to sleep; the mosquito lands next to him, opens the valise, and takes out a grinding wheel to sharpen his proboscis. Methodically, the mosquito gets one, two, then three drinks as the man tosses, slaps, turns, covers himself, and rubs the wounds. After a fourth drink, the mosquito is so full he can barely right himself. Still he has more. Bloated, he can only hover above the sleeping man's face. Suspense builds: can he launch? He's atop his victim's nose. He jettisons his valise. Will he now be light enough to escape?"

From:

http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/mccay.htm

"The Little Nemo film was released to theater and used in his act, as was his second. How a Mosquito Operates - this [one was] 6,000 drawings long. When these films were released into wider distribution, McCay's fame spread, especially to the fledgling animation community."

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As I've said earlier, Winsor McCay was the true father of commercial, cartoon animation. He is most famous for Gerdie the Dinosaur, an animation that we will feature in a future blog post. However, it was always a project, not a business. It took later pioneers (like the Fleischers, Sullivan, and Disney) to have the vision of making character animation into a business where you hire people to do it, establish characters for your audience, grow the distribution, and crank out more animations.

- TAE

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History of Animation 3 - Winsor McCay: How a Mosquito Operates (1912)
http://theanimationempire.blogspot.com/2008/01/history-of-animation-3-winsor-mccay-how.html

History of Animation 2 - Winsor McCay: Little Nemo (1911)
http://theanimationempire.blogspot.com/2008/01/history-of-animation-2-windsor-mccay.html

History of Animation 1 - J. Stuart Blackton: Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906)
http://theanimationempire.blogspot.com/2007/12/history-of-animation-1-j-stuart.html