What's going on in there?

Winsor McCay lived in the land of dreams and nightmares, so it's no surprise (to me, anyway) that not only did he use that as fodder for his comic strips but also imagined a world where drawings come alive. His masterpiece, "Little Nemo in Dreamland," always featured fantastic adventures of Nemo and his friends, followed by a sudden awaking upon the floor next to his bed, his mother always wondering what all the noise is about. The beauty and imagination of his drawing is still unsurpassed in the funny papers.

Not only did he draw wonderfully, but he was fast. As inventor of animation, he drew all his cartoons by himself, each frame a complete, stand-alone drawing. His first experiment was based on Little Nemo, and consisted of 4,000 drawings, all penciled, inked and colored by himself. His technical achievements were not his only claim to fame here, though, because he also gave his characters personality, no mean trick in silent film, a lesson many cartoon studios could well learn today. One of the most fascinating animated films he made was a documentary-style treatment of the sinking of the Lusitania.