ABSTRACT
McCay's death was mourned worldwide, but his reputation as an artist sank toward oblivion among the general public soon after his death. One example why: in 1934, Walt Disney was by then the dazzling king of film animation, who was contemplating his first feature-length cartoon, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Knowledge of McCay's essential, profound contributions to two art forms—comic strips and animation—was finally revived by historians and artists in the mid-1960s. In this chapter the epic, hair-raising, ultimately fortuitous struggle is described to preserve McCay's legacy of drawings and films by admirers of the artist, examples of “the kindness of strangers,” and the distance that is often necessary for the present to catch up with the past. Tributes from Chuck Jones, Maurice Sendak, Garry Trudeau, Milton Caniff, and Burne Hogarth, among other artists, attest to McCay's enduring legacy and his status as the king of cartoons. Winsor McCay's joy in the act of drawing survives and will continue to inspire future generations.
