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The Sinking of the Lusitania is a silent animated short film by American cartoonist and animator Winsor McCay that depicts the 1915 disaster in which a German submarine killed 1,198 people, including 128 Americans. McCay's employer, William Randolph Hearst, who was opposed to sending US troops to fight in World War I, downplayed the tragedy in his newspapers. In 1916 McCay grew tired of drawing anti-war cartoons for Hearst and started working on this propaganda film. He and his assistants spent twenty-two months in their off hours working on the production, using the new cel technology that was more efficient than the rice paper he had used previously. Released in 1918, The Sinking of the Lusitania is the earliest animated documentary and serious, dramatic work of animation to survive. It had little commercial success compared to McCay's earlier films, Little Nemo (1911) and Gertie the Dinosaur (1914), and his later animation went largely unnoticed. The artist spent the rest of his life making editorial drawings. (Full article...)