Billed as "The Greatest Animal Act in the World," the animated cartoon Gertie the Dinosaur premiered in Chicago in February 1914. "She eats, drinks, and breathes! She laughs and cries! Dances the tango, answers questions and obeys every command! Yet, she lived millions of years before man inhabited this earth and has never been seen since!!" claimed the posters. Though Gertie was not the first cartoon character to come alive on screen, she might as well have been. As American film critic Leonard Maltin has written, "One might say that Gertie launched an entire industry." Created by the American comic strip artist Winsor McCay, Gertie's silent debut preceded Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse sound film, Steamboat Willie, by 14 years. Though animated cartoons date to experiments in Thomas A. Edison's film studio as early as 1906, it was McCay's sophisticated drawings, charming story, and ingenuity that first really...