“A century ago, well before Jurassic Park or The Land Before
Time or even plain old moribund Godzilla, cinema’s preeminent dinosaur was
Gertie, a colorless, potentially narcoleptic herbivore, species indeterminate,
fond of dancing and casting elephants into the sea. Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) was one of the first animated films; it pioneered key-frame animation, a
technique in which a story’s major positions were drawn first and the
intervening frames were filled in afterward…”
Artist: Zenas Winsor McCay (c. 1867–1871 – July 26, 1934)