Little Nemo is a fictional character created by American cartoonist
Winsor McCay
Zenas Winsor McCay ( – July 26, 1934) was an American cartoonist and animator. He is best known for the comic strip ''Little Nemo'' (1905–14; 1924–26) and the animated film ''Gertie the Dinosaur'' (1914). For contractual reasons, he worke ...
. He originated in an early comic strip by McCay, ''
Dream of the Rarebit Fiend'', before receiving his own spin-off series, ''Little Nemo in Slumberland''. The full-page weekly strip depicted Nemo having fantastic dreams that were interrupted by his awakening in the final panel. The strip is considered McCay's masterpiece for its experiments with the form of the comics page, its use of color and perspective, its timing and pacing, the size and shape of its panels, and its architectural and other details.
''Little Nemo in Slumberland'' ran in the ''
New York Herald
The ''New York Herald'' was a large-distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between 1835 and 1924. At that point it was acquired by its smaller rival the ''New-York Tribune'' to form the ''New York Herald Tribune''.
Hist ...
'' from October 15, 1905, until July 23, 1911. The strip was renamed ''In the Land of Wonderful Dreams'' when McCay brought it to
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboya ...
's ''
New York American
:''Includes coverage of New York Journal-American and its predecessors New York Journal, The Journal, New York American and New York Evening Journal''
The ''New York Journal-American'' was a daily newspaper published in New York City from 1937 t ...
'', where it ran from September 3, 1911, until July 26, 1914. When McCay returned to the ''Herald'' in 1924, he revived the strip, and it ran under its original title from August 3, 1924, until January 9, 1927, when McCay returned to Hearst.
Concept
A weekly fantasy adventure, ''Little Nemo in Slumberland'' featured the young Nemo ("No one" in Latin) who dreamed himself into wondrous predicaments from which he awoke in bed in the last panel. The first episode begins with a command from King Morpheus of Slumberland to a minion to collect Nemo. Nemo was to be the playmate of Slumberland's Princess, but it took months of adventures before Nemo finally arrived; a green, cigar-chewing clown named Flip was determined to disturb Nemo's sleep with a top hat emblazoned with the words "Wake Up." Nemo and Flip eventually become companions, and are joined by an African Imp whom Flip finds in the Candy Islands. The group travels far and wide, from shanty towns to Mars, to
Jack Frost's palace, to the bizarre architecture and distorted
funhouse-mirror illusions of Befuddle Hall.
The strip shows McCay's understanding of dream psychology, particularly of dream fears—falling, drowning, impalement. This dream world has its own moral code, perhaps difficult to understand. Breaking it has terrible consequences, as when Nemo ignores instructions not to touch Queen Crystalette, who inhabits a cave of glass. Overcome with his infatuation, he causes her and her followers to shatter, and awakens with "the groans of the dying guardsmen still ringing in his ears".
Although the strip began October 15, 1905, with Morpheus, ruler of Slumberland, making his first attempt to bring Little Nemo to his realm, Nemo did not get into Slumberland until March 4, 1906, and, due to Flip's interfering, did not get to see the Princess until July 8. His dream quest is always interrupted, either by his falling out of bed, or by his parents forcing him to wake up.
On July 12, 1908, McCay made a major change of direction: Flip visits Nemo and tells him that he has had his uncle destroy Slumberland. (Slumberland had been dissolved before, into day, but this time it appeared to be permanent.) After this, Nemo's dreams take place in his home town, though Flip—and a curious-looking boy named the Professor—accompany him. These adventures range from the down-to-earth to
Rarebit-fiend type fantasy; one very commonplace dream had the Professor pelting people with snowballs. The famous "walking bed" story was in this period. Slumberland continued to make sporadic appearances until it returned for good on December 26, 1909.
Story-arcs included Befuddle Hall, a voyage to Mars (with a well-realized Martian civilization), and a trip around the world (including a tour of New York City).
Style
McCay experimented with the form of the comics page, its timing and pacing, the size and shape of its panels, perspective, and architectural and other detail. From the second installment, McCay had the panel sizes and layouts conform to the action in the strip: as a forest of mushrooms grew, so did the panels, and the panels shrank as the mushrooms collapsed on Nemo. In an early Thanksgiving episode, the focal action of a giant turkey gobbling Nemo's house receives an enormous circular panel in the center of the page. McCay also accommodated a sense of proportion with panel size and shape, showing elephants and dragons at a scale the reader could feel in proportion to the regular characters. McCay controlled narrative pacing through variation or repetition, as with equally-sized panels whose repeated layouts and minute differences in movement conveyed a feeling of buildup to some climactic action.
In his familiar
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Moder ...
-influenced style, McCay outlined his characters in heavy blacks. Slumberland's ornate architecture was reminiscent of the architecture designed by
McKim, Mead & White
McKim, Mead & White was an American architectural firm that came to define architectural practice, urbanism, and the ideals of the American Renaissance in fin de siècle New York. The firm's founding partners Charles Follen McKim (1847–1909), ...
for the 1893
World's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the Fair, h ...
in Chicago, as well as
Luna Park
Luna Park is a name shared by dozens of currently operating and defunct amusement parks. They are named after, and partly based on, the first Luna Park, which opened in 1903 during the heyday of large Coney Island parks. Luna parks are small-s ...
and
Dreamland in
Coney Island
Coney Island is a peninsular neighborhood and entertainment area in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach to its east, Lower New York Bay to th ...
, and the Parisian
Luxembourg Palace
The Luxembourg Palace (french: Palais du Luxembourg, ) is at 15 Rue de Vaugirard in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. It was originally built (1615–1645) to the designs of the French architect Salomon de Brosse to be the royal residence of t ...
.
McCay made imaginative use of color, sometimes changing the backgrounds' or characters' colors from panel to panel in a
psychedelic imitation of a dream experience. The colors were enhanced by the careful attention and advanced
Ben Day lithographic process employed by the ''Herald''s printing staff. McCay annotated the ''Nemo'' pages for the printers with the precise color schemes he wanted.
For the first five months the pages were accompanied with captions beneath them, and at first the captions were numbered. In contrast to the high level of skill in the artwork, the dialogue in the speech balloons is crude, sometimes approaching illegibility, and "disfigur otherwise flawless work", according to critic
R. C. Harvey
Robert C. Harvey (May 31, 1937 – July 7, 2022) was an American author, critic and cartoonist. He wrote a number of books on the history and theory of cartooning, with special focus on the comic strip. He also worked as a freelance cartoonist. ...
. The level of effort and skill apparent in the title lettering highlights what seems to be the little regard for the dialogue balloons, their content, and their placement in the visual composition. They tend to contain repetitive monologues expressing the increasing distress of the speakers, and showed that McCay's gift was in the visual and not the verbal.
McCay used ethnic stereotypes prominently in ''Little Nemo'', as in the ill-tempered Irishman Flip, and the nearly-mute African Impie.
Background
Winsor McCay
Zenas Winsor McCay ( – July 26, 1934) was an American cartoonist and animator. He is best known for the comic strip ''Little Nemo'' (1905–14; 1924–26) and the animated film ''Gertie the Dinosaur'' (1914). For contractual reasons, he worke ...
( – 1934) had worked prolifically as a commercial artist and cartoonist in carnivals and
dime museum
Dime museums were institutions that were popular at the end of the 19th century in the United States. Designed as centers for entertainment and moral education for the working class ( lowbrow), the museums were distinctly different from upper mi ...
s before he began working for newspapers and magazines in 1898. In 1903, he joined the staff of the ''
New York Herald
The ''New York Herald'' was a large-distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between 1835 and 1924. At that point it was acquired by its smaller rival the ''New-York Tribune'' to form the ''New York Herald Tribune''.
Hist ...
'' family of newspapers, where he had success with comic strips such as ''
Little Sammy Sneeze'' (1904–06). and ''
Dream of the Rarebit Fiend'' (1904–11)
In 1905, McCay got "an idea from the ''Rarebit Fiend'' to please the little folk". In That October, the full-page
Sunday strip
The Sunday comics or Sunday strip is the comic strip section carried in most western newspapers, almost always in color. Many newspaper readers called this section the Sunday funnies, the funny papers or simply the funnies.
The first US newspa ...
''Little Nemo in Slumberland'' debuted in the ''Herald''. Considered McCay's masterpiece, its child protagonist, whose appearance was based on McCay's son
Robert
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, h ...
, had fabulous dreams that would be interrupted with his awakening in the last panel. McCay experimented with the form of the comics page, its timing and pacing, the size and shape of its panels, perspective, architectural and other detail.
Publication history
''Little Nemo in Slumberland'' debuted on the last page of the Sunday comics section of ''
The New York Herald
The ''New York Herald'' was a large-distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between 1835 and 1924. At that point it was acquired by its smaller rival the ''New-York Tribune'' to form the ''New York Herald Tribune''.
Hist ...
'' on October 15, 1905. The full-page, color comic strip ran until July 23, 1911. In spring 1911, McCay moved to William Randolph Hearst's ''
New York American
:''Includes coverage of New York Journal-American and its predecessors New York Journal, The Journal, New York American and New York Evening Journal''
The ''New York Journal-American'' was a daily newspaper published in New York City from 1937 t ...
'' and took ''Little Nemo''s characters with him. The ''Herald'' held the strip's copyright, but McCay won a lawsuit that allowed him to continue using the characters. In the ''American'', the strip ran under the title ''In the Land of Wonderful Dreams''. The ''Herald'' was unsuccessful in finding another cartoonist to continue the original strip.
McCay left Hearst in May 1924 and returned to the ''Herald Tribune''. He began ''Little Nemo in Slumberland'' afresh that August 3. The new strip displayed the virtuoso technique of the old, but the panels were laid out in an unvarying grid. Nemo took a more passive role in the stories, and there was no continuity. The strip came to an end in January 1927, as it was not popular with readers. Hearst executives had been trying to convince McCay to return to the ''American'', and succeeded in 1927. Due to the lack of the 1920s Nemo's success, the ''Herald Tribune'' signed over all copyrights to the strip to McCay for one dollar.
In 1937, McCay's son Robert attempted to carry on his father's legacy by reviving ''Little Nemo''. Comic book packager
Harry "A" Chesler's syndicate announced a Sunday and daily ''Nemo'' strip, credited to "Winsor McCay, Jr." Robert also drew a comic-book version for Chesler called ''Nemo in Adventureland'' featuring grown-up versions of Nemo and the Princess. Neither project lasted long. In 1947, Robert and fabric salesman Irving Mendelsohn organized the McCay Feature Syndicate, Inc. to revive the original ''Nemo'' strip from McCay's original art, modified to fit the size of modern newspaper pages. This revival also did not last.
In 1966, cartoonist
Woody Gelman discovered the original artwork for many ''Little Nemo'' strips at a cartoon studio where McCay's son Bob had worked. In 1973, Gelman published a collection of ''Little Nemo'' strips in Italy. His collection of McCay originals is preserved at the
Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best pu ...
.
In 2005, collector Peter Maresca did, with his
Sunday Press Books
Sunday Press Books is an American publisher of comic strip reprint collections founded in 2005 by Peter Maresca. The company is known as a respected reprinter of comic strips and has to date won three Eisner Awards and two Harvey Awards. Since 202 ...
, self-publish a volume of ''Nemo'' Sundays as ''Little Nemo in Slumberland: So Many Splendid Sundays!''. The volume was large enough to reproduce the pages at the size they originally appeared in newspapers. Restoration work took Maresca five to twenty hours per page. A second volume, ''Little Nemo in Slumberland: Many More Splendid Sundays!'', appeared in 2008.
Adaptations
Theatre
As early as 1905, several abortive attempts were made to put ''Little Nemo'' on stage. In summer 1907,
Marcus Klaw and
A. L. Erlanger announced they would put on an extravagant ''Little Nemo'' show for an unprecedented $100,000, with a score by
Victor Herbert
Victor August Herbert (February 1, 1859 – May 26, 1924) was an American composer, cellist and conductor of English and Irish ancestry and German training. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is bes ...
and lyrics by
Harry B. Smith
Harry Bache Smith (December 28, 1860 – January 1, 1936) was a writer, lyricist and composer. The most prolific of all American stage writers, he is said to have written over 300 librettos and more than 6000 lyrics. Some of his best-known works ...
. It starred dwarf Gabriel Weigel as Nemo,
Joseph Cawthorn
Joseph Bridger Cawthorn (March 29, 1868 – January 21, 1949) was an American stage and film comic actor.
Biography
Born on March 29, 1868, in New York City to a minstrel-show family, Cawthorn started out in show business as a child, debut ...
as Dr. Pill, and
Billy B. Van
Billy B. Van (born William Webster Van de Grift; August 3, 1870 – November 16, 1950) was a prominent American entertainer in the early decades of the 1900s. He was a star, progressively, in minstrel shows, vaudeville, burlesque, the New York s ...
as Flip. Reviews were positive, and it played to sold-out houses in New York. It went on the road for two seasons. McCay brought his vaudeville act to each city where ''Little Nemo'' played. When a
Keith
Keith may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Keith (given name), includes a list of people and fictional characters
* Keith (surname)
* Keith (singer), American singer James Keefer (born 1949)
* Baron Keith, a line of Scottish barons ...
circuit refused to let McCay perform in Boston without a new act, McCay switched to the
William Morris
William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...
circuit, with a $100-a-week raise. In several cities, McCay brought his son, who sat on a small throne dressed as Nemo as publicity.
As part of an improvised story, Cawthorn introduced a mythical creature he called a "
Whiffenpoof
A whiffenpoof was a tool for training Boy Scouts in tracking skills. The whiffenpoof itself was a small log, about the size of a stick of firewood, with nails driven into it on all sides, so that it bristled with nails. This was dragged through th ...
". The word stuck with the public, and became the name of a
hit song and a
singing group. One reviewer of the 1908 operetta gave a paragraph of praise to the comic hunting tales presented in a scene in which three hunters are trying to outdo each other with hunting stories about the "montimanjack", the "peninsula", and the "whiffenpoof". He calls it "one of the funniest yarns ever spun" and compares it favorably to
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequel ...
's
The Hunting of the Snark
''The Hunting of the Snark'', subtitled ''An Agony in 8 Fits'', is a poem by the English writer Lewis Carroll. It is typically categorised as a nonsense poem. Written between 1874 and 1876, it borrows the setting, some creatures, and eight po ...
. One source indicates that the dialogue in fact began as an
ad lib by actor
Joseph Cawthorn
Joseph Bridger Cawthorn (March 29, 1868 – January 21, 1949) was an American stage and film comic actor.
Biography
Born on March 29, 1868, in New York City to a minstrel-show family, Cawthorn started out in show business as a child, debut ...
, covering for some kind of backstage problem during a performance. The Word is also referred in one of the Little Nemo comic strips published in 1909 (April 11). After being held down by nine policemen during a hysteria crisis, Nemo's father tells the doctor: “Just keep those whiffenpoofs away. Will you?”.
Despite the show's success, it failed to make back its investment due to its enormous expenses, and came to an end in December 1910.
In mid-2012 Toronto-based theatre company Frolick performed an adaptation of the strip into ''Adventures in Slumberland'', a multimedia show featuring puppets large and small and a score that included as a refrain "Wake Up Little Nemo", set to the tune of
The Everly Brothers
The Everly Brothers were an American rock duo, known for steel-string acoustic guitar playing and close harmony singing. Consisting of Isaac Donald "Don" Everly (February 1, 1937 – August 21, 2021) and Phillip "Phil" Everly (January 19, 193 ...
' 1957 hit "
Wake Up Little Susie
"Wake Up Little Susie" is a popular song written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant and published in 1957.
The song is best known in a recording by the Everly Brothers, issued by Cadence Records as catalog number 1337. The Everly Brothers record ...
".
Talespinner Children's Theatre in
Cleveland
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U ...
, OH produced a scaled-down, "colorful and high-energy 45-minute" adaptation in 2013, ''Adventures In Slumberland'' by
David Hansen.
In March 2017, a short, one-act adaptation of the "Little Nemo" adventures was staged at Fordham University in New York City. The play, simply entitled ''Little Nemo in Slumberland'', was written by Aladdin Lee Grant Rutledge Collar, and directed by student Peter McNally. The six person cast, as well as creative team, consisted of students and alums at the university.
Film
McCay played an important role in the early history of animation. In 1911 he completed his first film, ''Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald and His Moving Comics'' (also known as ''
Little Nemo''), first in theatres and then as part of his vaudeville act. McCay made the 4,000
rice-paper drawings for the animated portion of the film. The animated portion took up about four minutes of the film's total length. Photography was done at the
Vitagraph Studios under the supervision of animation pioneer
James Stuart Blackton. During the live-action portion of the film, McCay bets his colleagues he can make his drawings move. He wins the bet by animating his ''Little Nemo'' characters, who shapeshift and transform.
In 1984, Arnaud Sélignac produced and directed a film titled ''
Nemo'', a.k.a. ''Dream One'', starring
Jason Connery,
Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel ( ; born May 13, 1939) is an American actor. He is known for his portrayal of morally ambiguous and "tough guy" characters. He first rose to prominence during the New Hollywood movement, and has held a long-running association wit ...
, and
Carole Bouquet
Carole Bouquet (born 18 August 1957) is a French actress who has appeared in more than 60 films since 1977. In 1990, she was awarded the César Award for Best Actress for her role in ''Too Beautiful for You''. She was the face of Chanel No. 5 f ...
. It involves a little boy called Nemo, who wears pajamas and travels to a fantasy world, but otherwise the connection to McCay's strip is a loose one. The fantasy world is a dark and dismal beach, and Nemo encounters characters from other works of fiction rather than those from the original strip. Instead of Flip or the Princess, Nemo meets
Zorro
Zorro ( Spanish for 'fox') is a fictional character created in 1919 by American pulp writer Johnston McCulley, appearing in works set in the Pueblo of Los Angeles in Alta California. He is typically portrayed as a dashing masked vigilant ...
,
Alice
Alice may refer to:
* Alice (name), most often a feminine given name, but also used as a surname
Literature
* Alice (''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland''), a character in books by Lewis Carroll
* ''Alice'' series, children's and teen books by ...
, and
Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the ''Voyages extraord ...
's
Nautilus
The nautilus (, ) is a pelagic marine mollusc of the cephalopod family Nautilidae. The nautilus is the sole extant family of the superfamily Nautilaceae and of its smaller but near equal suborder, Nautilina.
It comprises six living species ...
(which was led by
Captain Nemo).
A joint American-Japanese feature-length film ''
Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland'' was released in Japan in 1989 and in the United States in August 1992 from
Hemdale Film Corporation, with contributions by
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury (; August 22, 1920June 5, 2012) was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of modes, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery fictio ...
,
Chris Columbus Christopher Columbus was an explorer born in Genoa, Italy.
Christopher Columbus or Chris Columbus may also refer to:
People
* Chris Columbus (musician) (1902–2002), American jazz drummer
* Chris Columbus (filmmaker) (born 1958), American dire ...
, and
Moebius
Moebius, Möbius or Mobius may refer to:
People
* August Ferdinand Möbius (1790–1868), German mathematician and astronomer
* Theodor Möbius (1821–1890), German philologist
* Karl Möbius (1825–1908), German zoologist and ecologist
* Paul ...
, and music by the
Sherman Brothers
The Sherman Brothers were an American songwriting duo that specialized in musical films, made up of Robert B. Sherman (December 19, 1925 – March 6, 2012) and Richard M. Sherman (born June 12, 1928). Together they received various accolades inc ...
. The story tells of a quest by Nemo and friends to rescue King Morpheus from the Nightmare King. The Princess is given a name, Camille, and Nemo has a pet flying squirrel named Icarus. It received positive reviews but earned $11.4 million on a $35 million budget and was a
box office bomb
A box-office bomb, or box-office disaster, is a film that is unprofitable or considered highly unsuccessful during its theatrical run. Although any film for which the production, marketing, and distribution costs combined exceed the revenue after ...
. However, it sold well on home video and has since developed a cult following.
A live-action film adaptation, ''
Slumberland'', was announced in January 2020. It was directed by
Francis Lawrence
Francis Lawrence (born March 26, 1971) is an Austrian-born American filmmaker and producer. After establishing himself as a director of music videos and commercials, Lawrence made his feature-length directorial debut with the superhero thrille ...
, and was released on
Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a ...
in 2022. It features a gender-swapped version of the title character played by Marlow Barkley.
Jason Momoa
Joseph Jason Namakaeha Momoa (; born August 1, 1979) is an American actor. He made his acting debut as Jason Ioane on the syndicated action drama series '' Baywatch: Hawaii'' (1999–2001), which was followed by portrayals of Ronon Dex on the ...
stars as a radically altered version of Flip, who is described as a "nine-foot tall creature that is half-man, half-beast, has shaggy fur and long curved tusks". The plot centers on Nemo and Flip traveling to Slumberland in search of the former's father.
Opera
The
Sarasota Opera
Sarasota Opera is a professional opera company in Sarasota, Florida, USA, which
was founded as the Asolo Opera Guild and, until 1974, presented a visiting company's productions. Between 1974 and 1979, it set about mounting its own productions in ...
commissioned composer
Daron Hagen
Daron Aric Hagen ( ; born November 4, 1961) is an American composer, writer, and filmmaker.
Biography
Early life
Daron Hagen was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and grew up in New Berlin, a suburb west of Milwaukee. Hagen was the youngest of ...
and librettist
J. D. McClatchy to create an opera based on ''Little Nemo''. Two casts of children alternated performances when it debuted in November 2012. The dreamlike nonlinear story told of Nemo, the Princess, and their comrades trying to prevent the Emperor of Sol and the Guardian of Dawn from bringing daylight to Slumberland. Special effects and shifting backgrounds were produced with projections onto a scaffolding of boxes. The work was first performed on November 10 and 11, 2012, by members of the Sarasota Opera, Sarasota Youth Opera, Sarasota Prep Chorus, The Sailor Circus and students from Booker High school.
Other media
In 1990,
Capcom
is a Japanese video game developer and publisher. It has created a number of multi-million-selling game franchises, with its most commercially successful being '' Resident Evil'', '' Monster Hunter'', '' Street Fighter'', '' Mega Man'', '' ...
produced a video game for the
NES, titled ''
Little Nemo: The Dream Master'' (known as ''Pajama Hero Nemo'' in Japan), a licensed game based on the 1989 film. The film would not see a US release until 1992, two years after the game's Japanese release, so the game is often thought to be a standalone adaptation of ''Little Nemo'', not related to the film. An
arcade game called simply ''
Nemo'' was also released in 1990.In 2021, A new game, titled ''Little Nemo and the Nightmare Fiends'' based on the original comic strip was launched on kickstarter. It is developed by Chris Totten of
Pie For Breakfast Studios
A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit (as in an apple pie), nuts ( pecan pie), brown sugar ( sugar pie), sw ...
and Benjamin Cole of
PXLPLZ.
Throughout the years, various pieces of Little Nemo merchandise have been produced. In 1941, Rand, McNally & Co. published a Little Nemo children's storybook. ''Little Nemo in Slumberland in 3-D'' was released by
Blackthorne Publishing in 1987; this reprinted Little Nemo issues with
3-D glasses
Stereoscopy (also called stereoscopics, or stereo imaging) is a technique for creating or enhancing the illusion of depth in an image by means of stereopsis for binocular vision. The word ''stereoscopy'' derives . Any stereoscopic image is ...
. A set of 30 Little Nemo postcards was available through Stewart Tabori & Chang in 1996. In 1993, as promotion for the 1989 animated film, Hemdale produced a Collector's Set which includes a VHS movie, illustrated storybook, and cassette soundtrack. In 2001,
Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics is an American comic book, graphic novel, and manga publisher founded in Milwaukie, Oregon by Mike Richardson in 1986. The company was created using funds earned from Richardson's chain of Portland, Oregon comic book shops known ...
released a Little Nemo statue and tin lunchbox.
Cultural influences
Little Nemo itself is influenced by children stories in general, and some French comic pages in particular.
Since its publishing, ''Little Nemo'' has had an influence on other artists, including
Peter Newell
Peter Sheaf Hersey Newell (March 5, 1862 – January 15, 1924) was an American artist and writer. He created picture books and illustrated new editions of many children's books.
A native of McDonough County, Illinois, Newell built a reputat ...
(''The Naps of Polly Sleepyhead''),
Frank King (''Bobby Make-Believe''),
Clare Briggs (''Danny Dreamer'') or
George McManus
George McManus (January 23, 1884 – October 22, 1954) was an American cartoonist best known as the creator of Irish immigrant Jiggs and his wife Maggie, the main characters of his syndicated comic strip, ''Bringing Up Father''.
Biography
...
(''Nibsy the Newsboy in Funny Fairyland''). Through the Paris edition of the
New York Herald
The ''New York Herald'' was a large-distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between 1835 and 1924. At that point it was acquired by its smaller rival the ''New-York Tribune'' to form the ''New York Herald Tribune''.
Hist ...
, his influence reached France and other European countries.
In children's literature,
Maurice Sendak
Maurice Bernard Sendak (; June 10, 1928 – May 8, 2012) was an American author and illustrator of children's books. He became most widely known for his book ''Where the Wild Things Are'', first published in 1963.Turan, Kenneth (October 16, 200 ...
said that this strip inspired his book ''
In the Night Kitchen'', and
William Joyce
William Brooke Joyce (24 April 1906 – 3 January 1946), nicknamed Lord Haw-Haw, was an American-born fascist and Nazi propaganda broadcaster during the Second World War. After moving from New York to Ireland and subsequently to England, ...
included several elements from Little Nemo in his children's book ''Santa Calls'', including appearances by Flip and the walking bed. Another tribute to Little Nemo is the comic, then made into a short film, ''
Little Remo in Pinchmeland'', by Ellen Duthie and Daniela Martagón.
The character and themes from the comic strip ''Little Nemo'' were used in a song "Scenes from a Night's Dream" written by
Tony Banks and
Phil Collins
Philip David Charles Collins (born 30 January 1951) is an English singer, musician, songwriter, record producer and actor. He was the drummer and lead singer of the rock band Genesis and also has a career as a solo performer. Between 1982 and ...
of the progressive rock group
Genesis
Genesis may refer to:
Bible
* Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind
* Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book o ...
on their 1978 recording, ''
...And Then There Were Three...''.
A progressive rock group from Germany named Scara Brae also recorded a musical impression of the comic on their rare self-titled disc from 1981 (the track was actually recorded 2 years earlier). Their concept piece was revived on the second album by the Greek band Anger Department, titled ''The Strange Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend'', again after a McCay-comic. Their ''Little Nemo'' was chosen for a theatre play, which was suggested for the cultural program for the Olympic Games in 2004.
In 1984, Italian comic artist
Vittorio Giardino
Vittorio Giardino (born December 24, 1946) is an Italian comic artist.
Biography
Giardino was born in Bologna, where he graduated in electrical engineering in 1969. At the age of 30, he decided to leave his job and devote himself to comics. Two ...
started producing a number of stories under the title ''
Little Ego'', a
parodic adaptation of ''Little Nemo'', in the shape of adult-oriented
erotic comics
Erotic comics are adult comics which focus substantially on nudity and sexual activity, either for their own sake or as a major story element. As such they are usually not permitted to be sold to legal minors. Like other genres of comics, they c ...
.
Brian Bolland
Brian Bolland (; born 26 March 1951)Salisbury, Mark, ''Artists on Comic Art'' ( Titan Books, 2000) , p. 11 is a British comics artist. Best known in the United Kingdom as one of the definitive Judge Dredd artists for British comics anthology ' ...
's early comic strip ''Little Nympho in Slumberland'' employed a similar technique.
The bar in ''Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors'' is called 'Little Nemo's'.
It influenced
Alan Moore
Alan Moore (born 18 November 1953) is an English author known primarily for his work in comic books including ''Watchmen'', '' V for Vendetta'', ''The Ballad of Halo Jones'', ''Swamp Thing'', ''Batman:'' ''The Killing Joke'', and ''From Hell ...
, in ''Miracleman'' No. 4, when the
Miracleman family end up in a palace called "Sleepy Town", which has imagery similar to Little Nemo's. In Moore (and
J.H. Williams III)'s ''
Promethea'', a more direct
pastiche
A pastiche is a work of visual art, literature, theatre, music, or architecture that imitates the style or character of the work of one or more other artists. Unlike parody, pastiche pays homage to the work it imitates, rather than mocking it ...
– "Little Margie in Misty Magic Land" – showed Moore's inspiration and debt to McCay's landmark 1905 strip. Little Nemo makes a visual cameo in Volume 4, Issue 4 of Moore and
Kevin O'Neill's ''League of Extraordinary Gentleman'', during the Shakespearean Theatre scene that includes many other cameos.
The
Sandman comics and graphic novel series occasionally references ''Little Nemo'' as well. Examples include ''
The Sandman: The Doll's House'', where an abused child escapes into dreams styled after McCay's comics and using a similar "wake-up" mechanism, and ''
The Sandman: Book of Dreams'' (pub. 1996), which features
George Alec Effinger's short "Seven Nights in Slumberland" (where Nemo interacts with
Neil Gaiman
Neil Richard MacKinnon GaimanBorn as Neil Richard Gaiman, with "MacKinnon" added on the occasion of his marriage to Amanda Palmer. ; ( Neil Richard Gaiman; born 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, gr ...
's characters
The Endless).
In 1989, teen comic book
Power Pack
Power Pack is a superhero team consisting of four young siblings appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Louise Simonson and artist June Brigman, they first appeared in their own series in 1984, which l ...
ran an issue (#47) which paid direct homage to one of McCay's Nemo storylines, featuring a castle that was drawn sideways and
Katie Power re-enacting a classic Nemo panel with a sideways-drawn hallway that served as a bottomless pit with the line "Don't fall in, y'hear?"
The video of the 1989 song for "
Runnin' Down a Dream" by
Tom Petty
Thomas Earl Petty (October 20, 1950October 2, 2017) was an American musician who was the lead vocalist and guitarist of the rock band Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, formed in 1976. He previously led the band Mudcrutch, was a member of the late ...
is directly inspired by ''Little Nemo in Slumberland'' by Winsor McCay, which features a drawing style reminiscent of McCay's and showing Petty and a character who resembles Flip travelling through Slumberland.
In 1990, Nintendo released for NES the video game ''Little Nemo: The Dream Master''. In this video game, Nemo went on a mission to save Slumberland. The game received positive reviews.
The band
Queensrÿche
Queensrÿche is an American heavy metal band. It formed in 1982 in Bellevue, Washington, out of the local band the Mob. The band has released 16 studio albums, one EP, and several DVDs, and continues to tour and record. The original lineup ...
paid homage to Little Nemo in their 1990 video
Silent Lucidity.
In 1994–1995, French artist
Moebius
Moebius, Möbius or Mobius may refer to:
People
* August Ferdinand Möbius (1790–1868), German mathematician and astronomer
* Theodor Möbius (1821–1890), German philologist
* Karl Möbius (1825–1908), German zoologist and ecologist
* Paul ...
wrote the story to a sequel comic series, ''Little Nemo'', drawn by Bruno Marchand in two
albums
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records c ...
. In 2000–2002, Marchand continued the story with two additional albums.
In 2006, electronic artist
Daedelus used Little Nemo artwork for his album ''
Denies the Day's Demise''.
The comic strip ''
Cul de Sac'' includes a strip-within-the-strip, ''Little Neuro'', a parody of Little Nemo. Neuro is a little boy who hardly ever leaves his bed.
In 2009, the
Pittsburgh ToonSeum established its NEMO Award, given to notable individuals "for excellence in the cartoon arts". Recipients to date include veteran comic-book artist
Ron Frenz
Ronald Wade Frenz (born February 1, 1960) is an American comics artist known for his work for Marvel Comics. He is well known for his 1980s work on ''The Amazing Spider-Man'' and later for his work on '' Spider-Girl'' whom he co-created with wri ...
, editorial and comic-strip artist
Dick Locher, cartoonist and comics historian
Trina Robbins
Trina Robbins (born Trina Perlson; August 17, 1938, in Brooklyn, New York) is an American cartoonist. She was an early participant in the underground comix movement, and one of the first female artists in that movement. In the 1980s, Robbins bec ...
, and comics artist, editorial cartoonist and artists' rights advocate
Jerry Robinson.
On October 15, 2012, celebrating the 107th anniversary of the first ''Little Nemo'' story, Google displayed an interactive animated "
Google Doodle
A Google Doodle is a special, temporary alteration of the logo on Google's homepages intended to commemorate holidays, events, achievements, and notable historical figures. The first Google Doodle honored the 1998 edition of the long-running ...
" called "Little Nemo in Google-land" on its homepage. The doodle showed a typical Little Nemo adventure through a series of panels, each featuring a letter from the word "Google". The doodle also ends in the same way as the comic strips, with Nemo falling from his bed.
Eric Shanower
Eric James Shanower (born October 23, 1963) is an American cartoonist, best known for his Oz novels and comics, and for the ongoing retelling of the Trojan War as '' Age of Bronze''.
Early life
Eric Shanower was born on October 23, 1963. Upon hi ...
and
Gabriel Rodriguez revived the characters in 2014 in an IDW comic book series entitled ''Little Nemo: Return to Slumberland''. That same year, Locust Moon Press released a new anthology and
Taschen
Taschen is a luxury art book publisher founded in 1980 by Benedikt Taschen in Cologne, Germany. As of January 2017, Taschen is co-managed by Benedikt and his eldest daughter, Marlene Taschen.
History
The company began as Taschen Comic ...
published the complete series (1905–1926).
On September 17, 2022, the comic strip ''Mutts'' has one of the strip's recurring characters, a naughty squirrel, "bonking" Nemo with an acorn, and wishing him "sweet dreams".
A
Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a ...
film loosely based on the strip, ''
Slumberland'', was released in 2022. It features Nemo as a young girl instead of a boy.
Legacy
Comics historian
R. C. Harvey
Robert C. Harvey (May 31, 1937 – July 7, 2022) was an American author, critic and cartoonist. He wrote a number of books on the history and theory of cartooning, with special focus on the comic strip. He also worked as a freelance cartoonist. ...
has called McCay "the first original genius of the comic strip medium". Harvey claims that McCay's contemporaries lacked the skill to continue with his innovations, so that they were left for future generations to rediscover and build upon. Cartoonist
Robert Crumb
Robert Dennis Crumb (; born August 30, 1943) is an American cartoonist and musician who often signs his work R. Crumb. His work displays a nostalgia for American folk culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and satire of contem ...
called McCay a "genius" and one of his favorite cartoonists.
Art Spiegelman
Art Spiegelman (; born Itzhak Avraham ben Zeev Spiegelman on February 15, 1948) is an American cartoonist, editor, and comics advocate best known for his graphic novel '' Maus''. His work as co-editor on the comics magazines '' Arcade'' and '' R ...
's ''
In the Shadow of No Towers'' (2004) appropriated some of McCay's imagery, and included a page of ''Little Nemo'' in its appendix.
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini (; 20 January 1920 – 31 October 1993) was an Italian film director and screenwriter known for his distinctive style, which blends fantasy and baroque images with earthiness. He is recognized as one of the greatest and most ...
read ''Little Nemo'' in the children's magazine ''
Il corriere dei piccoli
The ''Corriere dei Piccoli'' ( Italian for "Courier of the Little Ones"), later nicknamed ''Corrierino'' ("Little Courier"), was a weekly magazine for children published in Italy from 1908 to 1995. It was the first Italian periodical to make a ...
'', and the strip was a "powerful influence" on the filmmaker, according to Fellini biographer Peter Bondanella.
McCay's original artwork has been poorly preserved. McCay insisted on having his originals returned to him, and a large collection survived him, but much of it was destroyed in a fire in the late 1930s. His wife was unsure how to handle the surviving pieces, so his son took on the responsibility and moved the collection into his own house. The family sold off some of the artwork when they were in need of cash. Responsibility for it passed to Mendelsohn, then later to daughter Marion. By the early twenty-first century, most of McCay's surviving artwork remained in family hands.
Notes
References
Works cited
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External links
*''Little Nemo'' and other public-domain McCay strips for download a
The Comic Strip LibraryArchivedfrom the original on September 5, 2015.
*.
at
Don Markstein's ToonopediaArchivedfrom the original on November 16, 2015.
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Comic strips by Winsor McCay
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Comics adapted into plays
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Nemo, Little
Comics spin-offs
Comics about dreams
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