A page from Winsor McCay’s comic “Little Nemo”
Today’s Google Doodle celebrates the work of groundbreaking artist Winsor McCay, whose creations are ripe for investigation when exploring the material of Inventions and Origins in Moving Images. McCay’s explorations of motion picture language and the ways that one can play with frames and sequences in films such as Gertie the Dinosaur reflect the sense of discovery and invention that one sees in recent transitions during our own digital age, and they can initiate fruitful discussion and inspiration in the classroom. Moreover, Little Nemo‘s visual storytelling and intricate artistry serves as one of the best and most beautiful examples of sequential art that one can find. For further information on McCay, John Canemaker‘s biography is excellent (as usual; his writings on the Disney studios, such as Nine Old Men, are also highly recommended) and here is an interesting blog page on this innovative and very interesting creator. (And definitely check out the full animation of the Little Nemo doodle — it’s superb and quite worthy of the artist and vaudevillian McCay; in further celebrations of moving images, last month’s Google Doodle for the 46th anniversary of Star Trek was a real winner too!)
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