Text Fig. 6 Plan of Registering Drawings   McCay never patented any of his inventions, such as this pin registration system. Instead, John R. Bray and Earl Hurd laid claim to it.

Other Questions and Speculations
I can’t begin to speculate why McCay wrote this lesson. It appears he assumed the students might not be too sophisticated or talented as he doesn’t discuss some of the more complex animation problems he had solved in the making of The Sinking of the Lusitania. He was adding rich textures and tones of gray to his complex drawings while his contemporaries were content to draw simple characters that were black lines around white spaces. These artists did not seem interested in creating fine art. Their jobs demanded that they were able to draw their work quickly so they could meet their production deadlines. In contrast McCay loved rich details and seemed to take pleasure in creating sophisticated movements. In some sequences of Lusitania it appears that he used several layers of cels to create a complex play of movements between the ship, water and smoke.

The illustrations that accompany the text are, for the most part, not up to McCay’s standards. The drawing of Gertie is not from the 1914 film (different background, the film didn’t use shading and Gertie’s eyes didn’t look like circles placed on top of a head). Other illustrations appear to be drawn in an uninspired mechanical manner that is unlike McCay’s published work. I assume much of it was drawn by an assistant or even by somebody at the correspondence school. It is possible that only the Lusitania images came from McCay’s pen.

The historic information in the text is useful for several reasons. His mentioning that Gertie premiered in 1914 is important as several old books and articles have stated she was animated in 1909. I know a pompous animation teacher who still says she was created in 1909. There must be a lot of other people with the wrong date lodged in their brains as well.

Text Fig. 18 Wave Effects Used for Ocean Backgrounds and Animated Water Effects in The Sinking of the Lusitana	Text Fig.17 The Lusitana Coming Into View on the Horizon and Advancing to the Position Where It Was Struck by the Torpedo.
Although McCay shows us the background drawing of water from The Sinking of the Lusitania, he doesn't use the phrase "transparent animation cels."	McCay keeps the discussion of animation problems on The Sinking of the Lusitania very simple and basic in this lesson.

McCay discussing his lack of success with his first two films should be sobering information for novice animators. Unfortunately a lot of projects are begun without everything being fully developed in the creator’s mind. If you are a young animator, hopefully your endeavors will be more successful than McCay’s first two works. While you won't face the same problems he had, you may be able to avoid others both big and small by running your ideas past other people.

The remaining 6 lessons in this book provide basic instructions on how to work with cut-outs, how to build a drawing table, ways to create movements without having to redo the entire character in each frame, etc. Some of the text focuses on how to create simple eye catching moving images that can be used to promote local merchants in movie theaters. It appears that by 1919 there were jobs available in several cities with firms producing these advertising films. Perhaps you have heard of one or two artists who got their start in the industry creating this type of work in Kansas City — Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks.

There is also an informative section on how to do chalk talks before a live audience. The book tells how to do these talks by using prepared gimmicks and other techniques that have little to do with filmed animation. Including these talks in the book was important in 1919 as animators could earn extra income presenting them. McCay’s Little Nemo premiered April 8, 1911 as a movie short in a theater, and later that month he premiered a different version of the film on a New York City vaudeville stage as part of an in-person presentation. Gertie was also introduced to vaudeville audiences by McCay. The opening page of McCay’s lesson includes a drawing of him on a stage standing next to his dinosaur on the screen.

Karl Cohen is President of ASIFA-San Francisco. His first book, Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators in America, is published by McFarland Publishers. He also teaches animation history at San Francisco State University.