What was the first animated cartoon character?
Winsor McCay (1871-1934), the cartoonist most famous for the newspaper comics “Little Nemo” and “Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend,” was also a pioneer in animation. He was responsible for the short “Gertie the Dinosaur,” which introduced what many consider the first animated cartoon character.PrecursorsBefore Gertie’s debut, Winsor McCay had created two animated shorts: “Little Nemo” (1909) used 4,000 hand-drawn, hand-colored images that depicted his characters moving, but with no real plot. His second short, “How a Mosquito Operates” (1912), featured 6,000 drawings.Gertie the Dinosaur”Gertie the Dinosaur” (1914) was McCay’s third short, using 10,000 drawings. It featured a dinosaur named Gertie who seemed to have a personality as she indulged in activities like eating food and having a spat with a woolly mammoth.PerformanceMcCay also worked as a vaudeville performer, and incorporated “Gertie the Dinosaur” into his act, pretending to interact with Gertie as the film was projected onto a scree
