Here you will find links for anything related to The Palace Chat, where "cartoon dolls" were created. The Palace Chat is a 2-d graphical chat which is entirely user-supported.
As written by Cybrea, a Palace user who has been around since 1996! Clear documentation is on this website of when the first sk8ter avatar was created -- in 1997 by a user named Rainman.
Or, Evolution of the sk8ter avatar.
Note from Veriria: Keep in mind this article is at least 10 years old -- and conflicts with Shattered Innocentz story on how sk8ter avatars were born.