Just recently, I've been looking more into some of the things he did in his life and I bought a dvd with early animation shorts he did, some of which are amazing even to today's standards.
Winsor McCay, to put it simply, did it "the hard way." Hand drawing hundreds and sometimes thousands of individual pictures to make his animated shorts. I saw "The Sinking of the Lusitania" and I was blown away. Not only was the ship extremely detailed, but it was almost like watching a film itself. He originally did the animation as a propaganda piece, but by the time he was finished drawing it, World War I was over
Here's a link to one example of one of his comic strips "Little Sammy Sneeze."
http://www.bugpowder.com/andy/e.mccay-sneeze.html
Just by looking at this particular strip, you can see how even with still frames, you get a sense of progressive action.
Check him out sometime. You might find him to be very interesting
