It became an overnight sensation and led to McCay single-handedly turning out an animated version.Īfter less than a decade, though, the public lost interest in the strip and McCay, who had begun working for a Hearst newspaper in the meantime, was forced into editorial cartooning. He already had three strips going in the still-novel Sunday color pages when the Herald launched 'Little Nemo in Slumberland,' exactly 100 years and one week ago today. Not until George Herriman perfected 'Krazy Kat,' nearly a generation later, did deadline art again reach McCay's level.īack when daily newspapers defined and dominated the American media landscape, the New York Herald found it had a secret weapon in McCay (1867-1934).Ī native Midwesterner, he had drawn unstoppably since childhood.

Readers today will find the text and dialogue of 'Nemo' quaint, but the strip's pictorial drama and inventiveness still astonish. Well before movies had conquered popular consciousness and decades before they exploited color, McCay knew how to swoop a reader's eye through the rigid architecture of the comic strip and how to milk the powdery palette of printing ink colors available to him. It needs a coffee table all to itself.įor those who don't yet know McCay, the briefest glimpse of the book's contents will make the magic of his work evident. Those who already know Winsor McCay's place in the firmament of comic-strip artists will understand, especially when they learn that the book reproduces more than 100 of McCay's best pages at full broadsheet size. The size of this book allows readers to dive into the work just as turn of the century readers did every Sunday morning.In about an hour's time, during the book's brief availability on, it rocketed from 22,020 to 65 in the Web site's sales rankings. McCay used as much of the page as he could, creating landscapes of surprising depth and texture, and he played with perspective, creating dizzying effects which predated psychedelia by sixty years. These are included both in this book and other collections of the artist’s work. Like many popular entertainments of the era, Little Nemo is marred by racist caricatures, particularly in the character of Flip the Clown and the little Imp. The first of these, based on the Little Nemo strip, required four thousand drawings to bring the characters to life.ĭespite all his wonderful work, it’s important to remember that McCay is a product of his times. Between 19 he produced ten animated films.

Prior to his comic strip work, McCay drew gag strips, editorial cartoons, and posters for dime museums.

Each strip ends with Nemo waking up in the final panel, the shock on his face mirroring that of his readers. This comic strip explores the dreams of the titular Little Nemo as he finds himself in one surreal predicament after another.

Little nemo mccay