January 22, 1912 [How a Mosquito Operates]

Winsor McCay's How a Mosquito Operates reveals the depths—beneath the skin—to which a mosquito will go to fill its tail-end blood-bulb. The mosquito—young Pete likes to mispronounce it intentionally as mouse-KWEE-toe—stares and lands on the big head-shaven sleeping man's nose—on his forehead, more like it; this is one big mouse-KWEE-toe—and plunges its proboscis what seems a good two inches into the toss-and-turning fellow's own beezer, and gorges indifferently—the same stare on the bug's face whether it's feeding or flitting. And all the while the poor dope bulges his eyes and blinks and rolls over and goes back to sleep. The mosquito itself just keeps on sucking its fill, a model of pure gluttony—hazarding peril as it bloats itself beyond capacity.

This moving drawing, flat and precise and fluid, is mesmerizing. I wonder how it keeps up with the need to move, the hand that draws the bug quicker than the one that tries to swat it?