Animator, Illustrator, and Film Producer. A native of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, he is best known for his work with Otto Mesmer, and as producer of the first animated silent cartoons of Felix The Cat. Educated at the Art Society of New South Wales, Sullivan worked at various jobs, including as a gatekeeper at the famed Toohey's Brewery in Surry Hills, Australia, while doing his first caricaturist assignments. From 1905 to 1907, Sullivan contributed his work to trade union newspapers, and also worked on the Ally Sloper comic strip for almost two years. In 1909, he moved to England, and tried his luck at different careers. He became a lightweight boxer, and sang and acted in dance music halls. Those career moves eventually did nothing for him and he soon returned to his animation work. In 1913, Sullivan again moved, this time to the United States, where he found work designing cinema movie posters. That same year he took a job with the McClure Newspaper Company and he was assigned to work on the comic strip, "The Adventures of Sambo." Over the next few years, Sullivan opened his own studio, and began working on several of his own comic strips including, "Laura," "Johnny Boston Beans," "Obliging "Oliver," and "Old Pop Perkins" (his first actual animated film), among others. In 1917, Sullivan began work with Otto Mesmer, on the silent animated short, "The Tail Of Thomas Kat", an early prototype for Felix The Cat. In 1919, Mesmer took over the Felix The Cat cartoons. The Cat became one of the most popular theatre cartoon characters between 1919 and 1930. In 1930, Sullivan's distributors canceled his contract because he did not want Felix to move towards sound films. Three years later, in 1933, Sullivan changed his mind. He announced that Felix the Cat would be in sound in 1934, but he unexpectedly passed away from pneumonia that same year. Otto Mesmer died in 1983. While there has been controversy regarding the true creator of Felix The Cat, the NSW State Library in 2005 ran an exhibition titled "Reclaiming Felix" that provided convincing evidence that Sullivan was primarily responsible, Messmer's claims came about many years following the death of Sullivan and have been generally discredited, although it is not disputed that Messmer (like Disney's animator Ub Iwerks) made a significant contribution to the success of Felix.