Émile Cohl

Apprenticed as a jeweler and caricaturist in the bohemian Incohérents avant-garde art circle under André Gill, Courtet adopted the pseudonym Émile Cohl. In 1907, hired by Gaumont, he analyzed cinematographic trick films, realizing that drawing frame by frame would liberate illustration into pure motion.

On August 17, 1908, at the Théâtre du Gymnase in Paris, Cohl premiered Fantasmagorie: 700 individual chalk-line drawings shot frame by frame, creating fluid, metamorphic surrealist transformations. Moving to Fort Lee, New Jersey, he created the Snookums series, directing over 300 animated films.