"Little Nemo in Slumberland" dated September 22, 1907:
Transcript of Tweets by @LittleNemo1905; Guest Curated by @pfxbryan (SEPTEMBER 6, 2020):
I am still Dr. Bryan (@pfxbryan), and we are continuing our journey to the heart of the city. Here, we get a more vertical view of the space, as the giant-sized Nemo and Impie climb the buildings around them to get a better view. - 1/13
This strip is relatively simple: no tromping though landscapes, and limited conflict (Nemo agrees to leave without much prompting, though chooses to climb a nearby building rather than go out of the city the same way he came in). - 2/13
The gathered citizens telling him to go fight the giants himself caught my interest: the city dwellers appear to have no awareness of the great red monsters lurking in the forests, and I read the tone as mocking (and very New York). - 3/13
The layout of the buildings, of course, allows for easy climbing; this is positioned more as a giant playroom than a true cityscape, with the buildings rising in height along the block like a giant set of stairs. - 4/13
One imagines that this might appeal to the young readers of 1907, being able to clamber up and over buildings, but as an adult, that doesn’t seem so bad either (ah, to be freed from rush hour traffic in the urban commute!). - 5/13
Panel 7 seems special to me; as I mentioned yesterday, I wondered how much this arc reflects Winsor McCay’s experience (from rural to suburban to urban), and I could imagine his first view of the Chicago or New York City skyline reflected in this panel. - 6/13
The skyscraper, after all, was a relatively recent invention; perhaps McCay had encountered buildings like the Home Insurance Building in Chicago (completed in 1886, shortly before McCay’s arrival in the city in 1889). - 7/13 [INSERT IMAGE]
McCay’s buildings might appear quite blocky and basic to modern eyes, but this was the style of the time, with tightly packed structures that run together with limited space between, built for practical space concerns, not aesthetics. - 8/13
The cityscape growing ever higher and expanding, obscuring the horizon, offers a spectacular feeling of possibility, even if Flip remains missing for the moment. - 9/13
This arc hearkens back, in my mind, to "Dream of the Rarebit Fiend", which often utilized cityscapes as a landscape of the dream, though it is a more nightmarish and less playful space than here: - 10/13
I wonder whether this reflected McCay coming to terms with his own experiences with cities, or if perhaps he figured that his readers might possess anxiety in the built environment? - 11/13
There is more to say about "Dream of a Rarebit Fiend" in the context of this arc, but we will spend a few more Sundays in the city, during which some of the parallels will become more audience. - 12/13
This is a reading of “Little Nemo in Slumberland” #102. What have I overlooked? - 13/13
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