Little Nemo

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Little Nemo is the main fictional character in a series of weekly comic strips by Winsor McCay (1871-1934) that appeared in the New York Herald and William Randolph Hearst's New York American newspapers from October 15, 1905—April 23, 1911 and April 30, 1911—1913 respectively. The strip was first called Little Nemo in Slumberland and then In the Land of Wonderful Dreams when it changed papers.

Comic strip

Although a comic strip, it was far from a simple children's fantasy; it was often dark, surreal, threatening and even violent. The strip related the dreams of a little boy: Nemo (meaning "nobody" in Latin), the hero. The last panel in each strip was always one of Nemo in or near his bed waking up, often being scolded by one of his parents or grandparents for crying out in his sleep and waking them. In the earliest strips, the dream event that woke him up would always be some mishap or disaster that seemed about to lead to serious injury or death, such as being crushed by giant mushrooms, being turned into a monkey, falling from a bridge being held up by "slaves", or gaining 90 years in age. The adventures leading to these disasters all had a common purpose: to get to Slumberland, where he had been summoned by King Morpheus, to be the "playmate" of his daughter, the Princess.

Sometime during early 1906, Nemo did indeed reach the gates of Slumberland, but had to go through about four months of troubles to reach the Princess. His problem was that he kept being awakened by Flip, who wore a hat with "Wake Up" written on it. One sight of Flip was enough to take Nemo back to the land of the living, during these early days. Although at first an enemy, Flip went on to become one of the recurring heroes. The others included: Dr Pill, The Imp, the Candy Kid and Santa Claus as well as the Princess and King Morpheus.

The strip was not a great popular success in its time. Most readers preferred the slapstick antics of such strips as Katzenjammer Kids, Happy Hooligan and Buster Brown to the surreal fantasy of Nemo, and other comic strips like Krazy Kat. However, during the late 20th century and early 21st century, the strip received more recognition. Among the most noticeable of its qualities were its intricate visual style - often with high levels of background detail - its vivid colours, fast pace of movement from panel to panel and the huge variety of strange characters and scenery.

Few "comic" artists of any generation have ever matched, and even fewer have surpassed, the fertility of McCay's imagination. Certain episodes are particularly famous. Any list of these would have to include the Night of the Living Houses (said to be the first comic strip to enter the collection of the Louvre) where Nemo and a friend are chased down a city street by a gang of tenement houses on legs; the Walking Bed, where Nemo and Flip ride over the rooftops on the increasingly long limbs of Nemo's bed (see illustration); and the Befuddle Hall sequence, where Nemo and his friends attempt to find their way out of a funhouse environment of a Beaux Arts interior turned topsy-turvy. McCay's mastery of perspective, and the extreme elegance of his line work, make his visions graphically wondrous. The eccentric dialogue is delivered in a dreamy deadpan, and often appears to be hastily jammed into tiny word balloons that can scarcely contain it. A typical line: "Whoever named this place Befuddle Hall knew his business! I am certainly befuddled."

The strips, along with most of the rest of McCay's works, fell into the public domain worldwide on January 1, 2005. The complete set of Little Nemo strips is available in a single volume from Taschen: Little Nemo 1905-1914 (ISBN 3822863009).

Adaptations

Main articles: ,

• James Stuart Blackton and Winsor McCay directed a three-minute animated short film based on the comic strip. The film was first released on April 8, 1911, the first animated effort of McCay. Later, it achieved the status of an early animated classic.
• In 1990, Capcom produced a video game for the NES, titled (known as "Little Nemo: Pajama Hero" in Japan). Around the same time, an arcade game called simply "Nemo" was released.
• Both games were adapted from an 85-minute-long animated feature film entitled (known simply as "Little Nemo" in Japan) which was directed by Masami Hata, Masanori Hata and William T. Hurtz from a screenplay by Chris Columbus and Richard Outten. It was released in Japan in July of 1989, and in the U.S. on July 24, 1992 but proved to be a commercial failure in the States, altough it later went on to be nominated and win several awards for its, at the time, brilliant animation quality. The film was released on DVD in October of 2004.

Collections

• "Little Nemo 1905-1906" Nostalgia Press
• Little Nemo in the Palace of Ice and Further Adventures Dover, ISBN 0-486-23234-4
• Little Nemo In Slumberland, 1905-07 Fantagraphics ISBN 0930193636
• Little Nemo In Slumberland, 1907-08 Fantagraphics ISBN 0930193644
• Little Nemo In Slumberland, 1908-10 Fantagraphics
• Little Nemo In Slumberland, 1910-11 Fantagraphics
• Little Nemo In Land of Wonderful Dream, Part 1, 1911-12 Fantagraphics
• Little Nemo In Land of Wonderful Dream, Part 1, 1913-14 Fantagraphics ISBN 1560971304
• Little Nemo, 1924-25 Fantagraphics, unpublished ?
• Little Nemo, 1926-27 Fantagraphics, unpublished ?
• Little Nemo, 1905-14 Taschen, ISBN 3822863009
• Little Nemo in Slumberland: So Many Splendid Sundays Sunday Press Books ISBN 0976888505
• Best of Little Nemo in Slumberland Stewart, Tabori, & Chang, ISBN 1556706472

Trivia

• In 1978, the British rock band Genesis recorded a song, "Scenes From a Night's Dream", based on the comic strip. The song was the first Genesis recording to have lyrics written by Phil Collins and is featured on the album, ...And Then There Were Three....
• In 1995, the strip was one of 20 included in the Comic Strip Classics series of commemorative US postage stamps.
• After its release on public DVD and tape, the "Little Nemo" film has sold over 2 million copies.

External links

• [Winsor McCay Biography]
• [Internet Movie Database profile of the 1911 short film]
• [Internet Movie Database profile of the 1990 video game]
• [Internet Movie Database profile of the 1992 feature film]
• "[Finding 'Little Nemo']" (review of So Many Splendid Sundays!), Douglas Wolk, Salon.com, December 3, 2005.
• Interview with Peter Maresca (editor of So Many Splendid Sundays) and Art Spiegelman from the KCRW radio show [Bookworm] - [excerpt from the book]
• ["Little Nemo in Comicsland"] (Winsor McCay's influence on comics), Jeet Heer, Virginia Quarterly Review, Spring 2006.

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