PREHISTORIC ANIMATION

In a cave in Spain there is a wall painting of a wild boar running,
estimated to have been drawn about thirty thousand years ago. The
artist painted the boar with eight legs to show him running. There
being no animation at the time, this is how movement was drawn. It
showed a desire for movement, a reassuring thought. In the book THE
ART OF ANIMATION (1958) the boar painting is shown in color and in his
film documentary THE STORY OF THE ANIMATED DRAWING Walt Disney took
the boar, isolated the painted legs and combined them as needed to
show that boar running using the old painting elements in animation.
Thirty thousand years is a long completion time.

The first big animation star came from prehistoric times, being Winsor
McCay's GERTIE THE DINOSAUR (l9l4).

But my favorite prehistoric cartoon, shown below, is from the comic
strip NON SEQUITOR. It brings to mind something we once proposed to
the City of Montreal that would have brought this cartoon concept to
life.

Riding in the subway one day, I noticed from the large side windows on
the train that in the dark tunnels between stations there were lightx
on the walls at regular intervals as we went past them, The longer the
distance between stations the faster the subway train would go. I
realized that one could have animation in the tunnels. Large drawings
could be added to the regular lights. At full speed, using the frames
of the windows as a shutter, the drawings could come to life and be
short animated logos and simple characters. The city could sell
advertising, that could change from time to time and get international
publicity. Some tweaking would have to be done, but our research
showed it could be done. And the comic strip below, which was done
many years later, would become a reality!

Unfortunately this was another of our proposed projects that did not
happen. You win some, you lose some. In a way it wasn't a lost cause.
Some years later we put some of what we learned to work in the
animation we did for the large computer scoreboard at the Montreal
Forum, where the Montreal Canadiens played NHL hockey. We did hockey
gags animation, logos and even simple commercials using new computer
methods, unique animation timing and other things we learned from
research into the subway project. And this cartoon still makes me
laugh.