Winsor McCay-1912-How a Mosquito Operates-An incredible artistic early animated film --A little gem

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• published: 15 Jan 2014
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Zenas Winsor McCay (c. 1867--1871 or September 26, 1869 -- July 26, 1934), the director of "How a Mosquito Operates" (also known as The Story Of A Mosquito), 1912, was an American cartoonist and animator. He is best known for the comic strip Little Nemo (1905--14; 1924--26) and the animated film Gertie the Dinosaur (1914). For contractual reasons, he worked under the pen name Silas on the comic strip Dream of the Rarebit Fiend. Since a young age, McCay was a prolific, technically dextrous artist. He began his professional career making posters and performing for dime museums, and began illustrating newspapers and magazines in 1898. He joined the New York Herald in 1903, where he created popular comic strips such as Little Sammy Sneeze and Dream of the Rarebit Fiend. In 1905, his signature strip Little Nemo in Slumberland debuted, a work which demonstrated McCay's mastery of color and linear perspective. At the same time, McCay was doing chalk talks on the vaudeville circuit. Between 1911 and 1921 he produced ten animated films; these included Gertie the Dinosaur, which he used as an interactive part of his vaudeville act. McCay joined William Randolph Hearst's chain of newspapers in 1911, after which his comic strip, vaudeville, and animation work was gradually curtailed as Hearst expected him to devote his energies to editorial cartooning. In his drawing, McCay made bold, prodigious use of linear perspective such as in detailed architecture and cityscapes. He textured his editorial cartoons with fine hatching, and made color a central element in Little Nemo. The technical level of McCay's animation was not matched until Walt Disney's feature films arrived in the 1930s. He pioneered inbetweening, the use of registration marks, cycling, and other animation techniques that became standard. His comic strip work has influenced generations of artists, including William Joyce, André LeBlanc, Moebius, Maurice Sendak, Chris Ware, Bill Plympton and Bill Watterson. Like all of Winsor McKay's cartoons, "How a Mosquito Operates" uses his incredible artistic talent to its fullest and contains a surprising amount of wit for such a simple, short subject. Like his newspaper cartoons, McKay's animated films are distinctive in their art and humor, but the animated films are especially interesting because they lie at the very root of cartoons. Gags that are still being used today appear in this little gem. The collected works that contains Mosquito provides an amazing insight into a brand new art form that had unbounded possibilities in the early 1900s, possibilities that arguably are still unfolding today. The techniques employed here are very good, making this film very good to look at even today in a sophisticated era whose animated films have the best techniques, the most interesting stories and all of that. The way the story was told was incredibly original, using comical effects (the mosquito doesn't fly to get into the apartment, he climbs the door and enters into a passage, very funny moment) and believe me it's great for educational purposes. If a kid asks you how and why a mosquito operates instead of telling a boring and long conversation about the issue show to the kid this animation. It will present some education and laughs at the same time. So why is it STILL a worthwhile film? Well, it's so early and in its day it was considered state of the art. Plus, the film's creator, Winsor McCay, was responsible for some of the first animated heroes--in the forms of Gertie the Dinosaur and Little Nemo. So, because of this very important and impressive pedigree, this film is of great importance to animators, historians and Cinephiles alike. For what it is (an early experimental film), it is pretty good. Plus, without films like this, later more fleshed out cartoons wouldn't have been possible. Interesting and unique, that's for sure. Resources: Wikipedia.org, imdb.com New soundtrack and dubbing: HandyCinema Music : Kevin Mac Leod (incompetch.com) licensed under Creative Commons licence: Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/