This is a biography of Emile Cohl (1857-1938), one of the most important pioneers of the art of the animated cartoon and an innovative contributor to popular graphic humour at a critical moment when it changed from traditional caricature to the modern comic strip. It provides not only a wealth of information on Cohl's life but also an analysis of his contribution to the development of the animation film in both France and the USA and an interpretation of how the new genre fit into the historical shift from a "primitive" to a "classical" cinema.
