Lusitania Review

Via The Constant Viewer, you can read a 1918 movie review for McCay's animated masterpiece "The Sinking of the Lusitania." The reviewer struggles with what to make of an animated cartoon that, for the first time in history, is not intended for humorous entertainment... Here are some excerpts:

Winsor McCay seems the only American today interested in exploring this medium. Animations are particularly suited for the young.... However, after the amusements of Flip and Gertie, with his re-enactment of the Lusitania offense McCay turns pointedly away from the little ones, and assaults us with horror.... It is visually powerful in its intermingling of direct facts and outraged sentiment.... There is something at once momentous and audacious when an animated cartoon asks me to weep and rage.... But it's safe to say that McCay has engendered yet another shift in the history of this flickering art form. The animated cartoon, for better or worse, now has aspirations.