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The Sinking of the Lusitania is a silent animated short film by American cartoonist and animator Winsor McCay. A work of propaganda, it is a re-creation of the never-photographed 1915 sinking of the RMS Lusitania. At twelve minutes it has been called the longest work of animation at the time of its release. The film is the earliest animated documentary and serious, dramatic work of animation to survive. In 1915, a German submarine torpedoed and sank the RMS Lusitania; 128 Americans were among the 1,198 dead. The event outraged McCay, but the newspapers of his employer William Randolph Hearst downplayed the tragedy, as Hearst was opposed to the US joining World War I. The earlier films were drawn on rice paper, onto which backgrounds had to be laboriously traced; The Sinking of the Lusitania was the first film McCay made using the new, more efficient cel technology. McCay and his assistants spent twenty-two months making the film. His subsequent animation output suffered setbacks, as the film was not as commercially successful as his earlier efforts, and Hearst put increased pressure on McCay to devote his time to editorial drawings.