Review – Winsor McCay: The Master Edition

At last all of McCay’s animation has been gathered onto one disc. It’s amazing just how well this early, experimental stuff stacks up against more sophisticated work done by his successors. Naturally, part of the quality is due to McCay’s genius with line drawing. But another big part of the appeal is his obsessive attention to detail. One never gets the impression in any of these animations that the artist is cutting corners in order to make the production cheaper or churn it out faster. It at least some of the work the artist himself draws every frame without using cels. The result is uniformly beautiful, though time has taken its toll on some of the existing prints used to create this disc. The story lines are also unsophisticated by 21st century standards, sometimes choppy due to missing footage or experiments with techniques that don’t work. And in other places we’re treated to humor that would likely have seemed funnier to audiences a hundred years ago. But overall the work is timelessly charming, unsophisticated yet brilliant, and a must-see not just for film historians but for anyone who likes a good cartoon. Buy the disc