At first, each panel had a text description of the action (often in long, even run-on sentences), later switching to a complete synopsis at the top of the strip, and finally (mercifully for my eyes) dropping the text entirely. The text is tiny, and I had to limit myself to reading only a couple of pages at a time to avoid serious eye strain. So even though this particular volume is a large size, it's still smaller than the comics were meant to be written. The first thing to keep in mind is that these strips were originally full newspaper pages.

The way McKay used color adds to the dreamlike quality of the already surreal images. This probably shouldn't be too surprising, as they were both working with wild fantasy worlds during roughly the same time period.) There's wildly surreal imagery, of course, and more creative layouts than I had expected, but all that aside, the art is truly beautiful. (Something about the art reminds me of John R.

If for no other reason, fans of comics should at least page trough one of the Little Nemo collections to take in the astonishingly beautiful art. I love Little Nemo in Slumberland, and its faded popularity bums me out. I feel like I'm falling in when I read it.into colors, imagination, the past, wisdom, dreams, nightmares, romance, antagonism, opulence.I find inspiration and a sort of revival of spirit. I particularly like when they take the form of solid nightmares, such as the day where Nemo is loaned stilts, pursued by long-legged birds, falls, and is thoroughly speared.įor me, Little Nemo is the apex of nearly every sort of media. And as to the plots, they're fantastically imaginative. Sometimes the dialogue is simply exclamations or descriptions of what's happening in the art, but if you pay attention you'll see that each character has an individual personality and speaking style if they are recurring, they become more well-rounded along the way (Nemo, for example, is shown to be impatient, kindhearted, agreeable but sometimes stubborn, curious, etc.). I love the animated yet stilted dialogue, and McCay is sometimes delightfully witty in a dry way. This volume is not the best, but it's still very very good.Ī lot of people, including Bill Watterson (Calvin & Hobbes you can also see a LOT of Nemo influence when you compare the two) and all sorts of scholars, consider the dialogue to be the weakest point of Little Nemo, an incidental addition that isn't even hardly worth reading. He begins with the narrative text squeezed into the bottom of each panel, then tries putting it all at the beginning, then, thankfully, abandons it entirely. You can watch McCay experimenting and developing Little Nemo in this book.

Little nemo in slumberland comic