"Little Nemo in Slumberland" dated January 26, 1908:
Transcript of Tweets by @LittleNemo1905 (SEPTEMBER 24, 2020):
I *cannot* be the only one who immediately had flashbacks to #TheMatrix when they read that top tier right? Nemo standing Infront of an endless row of him and his friends reminded me of Neo (curious similarity names…) and the gun racks?! - 1/20 [INSERT GUN RACK GIF]
Ok. I'm not going to get into a conversation about red pills and blue pills here, but this strip must have been a NIGHTMARE to draw… particularly that third tier which is so crowded in comparison to the other top two tiers. - 2/20
I actually love the affect that the infinity mirror design creates in the reader… or at least me. We go from infinite and vast to claustrophobic in mere panels… the kaleidoscopic penultimate panel seemingly defying logic is the cherry on top. - 3/20
And though that second last panel is the centrepiece of the entire strip, it isn't the one I focus on the most. This is because panel 4 completely abandons any type of "real/waking world" logic and replaces with a "dreamworld logic" so it's easy to just experience. - 4/20
I'm wondering less how it's infinity configuration works (though I think it's as simply as this): - 5/20 [INSERT COPY 1]
So, while I pretty much gave up caring what the room they were standing in looked like in panel 4, panel 3 on the other hand still had me looking at it form the perspective of a magician's audience member; I wanted to figure out the trick! - 6/20
And, ultimately, I think it was much easier to do than it initially looked… Here's my guess: - 7/20 [INSERT COPY 2]
The infinity mirror trick here also harkens back to McCay's love of the Carnival! "Halls of Mirrors" are staples of the Carnival; their trick is to disorient the guest so that it is hard for them to decipher the path to freedom… hard for them to distinguish between real and false. - 8/20
This strip, filled as it is with simulacrum (cheap mirror imitations of our three friends) actually caused me to think back to the trio's meta-moment of self-realization about their station as comics characters in strip #112 (December 01, 1907). - 9/20
Back then, we discussed how they recognize that they are fictional comics characters, yet they never seem to comment on how each passing panel duplicates them/creates a copy of their original copy… in an endless loop that will persist for the entire existence of this strip. - 10/20
If the characters know they are comics characters, they know that progression happens through space… they are constantly "remade" panel by panel in order to exist at all. By extension, each iteration only exists within the confines of their own panel… - 11/20
This strip then acted to remind me of all the duplicate Nemo's, Flip's, and Impy's that we've abandoned in our journey… certainly in the #120th strip there must be hundreds of discarded friends… ones we left behind when we moved on to the next panel/comic causing them to be born again… Is this Hall of Mirrors their memorial? - 12/20
I read the strip as a wonderful example of postmodern thinking… as Baudrillard's (1981) #SimulacraAndSimulation called for us to challenge the notion of the real, this strip doing the same. - 13/20 [INSERT IMAGE]
Are the mirror images of the trio real? Are they simulacrum? Does that even matter in a fictional universe? If not, then why do we bother studying fictional worlds? If so, then what does that tell us about the objectivity of "the real"? - 14/20
This blurring of the boundary between real and fake, waking and dreaming, true and false, is something that we've been grappling with for a very long time, isn't it? I find it incredibly refreshing to see it tackled head on here. - 15/20
I'll end by mentioning that Impy finally speaks again in this strip… though he's immediately shot down by Flip as a result for doing so. Another example of Flip's poor treatment of Impy. - 16/20
All of this because Flip wants to stop and think… and though I'm not overly happy with the way Flip gets to the point about "thinking" by using Impy as a stepping stone, I read it as a call for us to pause and consider the contents of this strip. - 17/20
This isn't the type of #LittleNemo strip that you can just read and scoot passed… I think there is some deep, critical thinking that can and should be applied to not just this, but all the Befuddle Hall strips. - 18/20
Let's hope that the boys find their bearings soon… That said, this reading forces us to ask… will THESE iterations of the trio ever really escape this strip? Or are they stuck in the Hall of Mirrors forever while new copies replace them next week? - 19/20
This is my reading of "Little Nemo in Slumberland" #120. What's yours? - 20/20
Comments