"Little Nemo in Slumberland" dated January 12, 1908:
Transcript of Tweets by @LittleNemo1905 (SEPTEMBER 21, 2020):
I really don't have much to say here… It's a pretty basic strip not much goes on here beyond the coppers beating on each other. - 1/10
Regular panels in a regular grid makes it pretty formally uninteresting… though, that said, the gag is a good demonstration of visio-linguistic bimodality. - 2/10
Obviously, the primary focus of this strip is watching the domino effect of the coppers beat on one another because they think it was that person who clobbered them prior. - 3/10
Of course, it's Flip who sets this off by whacking the first cops feet, but none of them seem to get the right fellow and thus the cycle of violence continues (and even seems to imply that it ends with the first cop getting a second wallop). - 4/10
Despite this comedy of errors, the penultimate panel features a wall plaque where Morpheus praises his "noble police force" for doing their "duty" in this "hour of anxiety" as they all search for Nemo… - 5/10
Well, unless their duty is sleeping in the precinct while literally every other Slumberlandian is out searching for the boys, then… they're failing. - 6/10
On top of that, they don't seem to be very good at detective work, as none of them hits the right cop… it's like they react without really considering the situation. Not good qualities in an office, at all… - 7/10
So, in this way, the visual of the officers and the linguistic plaque work at odds to one another and force you to renegotiate the humour in light of the information presented in the penultimate panel. - 8/10
It's really the most clever part of this strip and what stands out to me the most. - 9/10
This is my reading of "Little Nemo in Slumberland" #116. What's yours? - 10/10