Writing for Animation, Comics, and Games

CHAPTER   1

History / Evolution of Animation

Animation—or cartoons, if you will—has a long, rich history. In order to understand how scriptwriters entered the picture and came to be where they are today, this section will briefly look at how cartoons developed.

In 1914, the marvelous artist Winsor McCay lovingly crafted line-art animation in a masterpiece known as “Gertie the Dinosaur.” It was the first time someone had created a true character for the screen and had the character act out a little story.

One artist doing all the work was both painstaking and time-consuming, so the next step in the evolution was the development of animation studios where teams of artists would work on projects, leading to specialization. Soon you had artists who ...