When figures in a series of pen-and-ink drawings were made to blend into an illusion of motion, the cartoon had moved a step forward. Now music accompanies the showing of the cartoon movie, sound effects follow the motions, and these creatures of an artist’s pen speak and sing -a magic life has been breathed into the once flat, lifeless drawings!
The principle of motion in movie cartoons is simple. In a series of drawings showing a man raising his hand to his hat, the first depicts him with his arm hanging.
In the next, the arm is raised slightly and following drawings show the arm at higher and higher elevations, until the hand finally touches the hat. When the series is passed before the eyes at a rapid rate, it seems that the arm is making a continuous motion.
This is because vision “carries over" beyond the point where an object has been removed from sight, and one drawing blends into the next without consciousness of interruption. Movie cartoons are like any other motion picture in respect to this illusion of motion. Where the cartoon uses a series of drawings and blends them into motion by passing them rapidly in succession before the eyes, the ordinary movie uses a series of “still” photographs. […]
