Winsor McCay (September 26, 1867 in Spring Lake, Michigan - July 26, 1934) was a cartoonist, comic strip writer, and animated film director. Creator of Little Nemo, he is considered one of the most important comic strip artists. His work influenced many artists such as Moebius and Hayao Miyazaki. He is also a pioneer of animation: his animated film Gertie the Dinosaur is the first to feature a single character with an endearing personality, which influenced the early films of Walt Disney, Max Fleischer, and Osamu Tezuka. Winsor McCay had an early vocation for drawing, but it was at 16, under the influence of his drawing teacher John Goodison, that he discovered and developed his skills for original architectural perspectives rich in novel effects. He quickly used his talents and launched into an itinerant career as an advertising painter and decorator. At 17, he settled in Chicago and continued his artistic studies. He was particularly impressed by the constructions made for the World's Fair and the skyscrapers that sprang up from the ruins of the 1871 fire. At 19, he was already an appreciated and experienced painter and decorator, so much so that he was employed by Morton's Dime Museum in Cincinnati, a museum of natural history and ethnography where fairground performers appeared. For about ten years, from 1886 to 1896, Winsor McCay produced thousands of drawings for amusement parks (Wonderland) that were then in vogue in the United States. It is highly likely that he also worked as a fairground artist: a virtuoso at work, he impressed visitors. In 1891, he married Maud Leonore Dufour (then 14 years old). In 1897, he began working for the local press in Cincinnati and Life, for which he created caricatures and science fiction drawings. He eventually caught the attention of James Gordon Bennett, owner of the highly respected New York Herald and Evening Telegram, who hired him. McCay moved to New York in October 1903.

Book: https://archive.org/details/LittleNemo1905-1914ByWinsorMccay/mode/2up