"Little Nemo in Slumberland" dated December 12, 1909:
Transcript of Tweets by @LittleNemo1905 (JANUARY 13, 2021):
Well, McCay's Santa Claus is back at his old tricks… it'd seem as though Rudolph and the Reindeer are out of a job again this year as Santa has built a new airship! - 1/15
This trope, Santa the Inventor, is one that we see play out across popular culture and media even today (The Santa Claus, Noelle, The Christmas Chronicles, etc.) but rarely do they play out so… catastrophically. - 2/15
McCay's Santa is kind of lovable in his ineptitude… we've seen him try many, many new machines and almost all of them have failed (strip #115 from Dec. 22, 1907 is most memorable for me): - 3/15
That said, all of this makes so much sense when coming from the mind of a young boy, fueled by anxiety that Santa will somehow be prevented from delivering him his Christmas presents. - 4/15
I think the penultimate panel really speaks to this as Santa and all the toys that filled his airship come crashing down upon the group. - 5/15
To us, adults, we see "things" raining down… maybe children see sad little boys and girls who won’t receive their presents? - 6/15
Another thing that stands out to me is the top tier; it recalls some of the earlier exploits that utilized this type of introduction to the narrative. - 7/15
The Princess begging someone to bring Nemo to her and the other person promising to do so. I like that this inverts the expectation though; Santa says he cannot bring her Nemo! - 8/15
That second panel features the title card and is beautiful. I find it formally interesting that McCay has chosen *not* to number as an actually panel. - 9/15
Obviously, he does this because he wants to ensure no one thinks the paratextual title card is diegetic material… but it creates an interesting spatial layout with a massive divide between panel 1 and 2. - 10/15
One way to read this is that It reinforces the distance between the two (Slumberland and the North Pole). - 11/15
It's interesting to me that McCay has chosen to utilize/fill the gutter for this purpose… There are even hints of ice/frost build-up that bleed from panel to gutter, here. Notice that elsewhere, the frost build-up is restricted by the panel's frame. - 12/15
But, then again, it isn't *really* the gutter (it is a panel with it's own frame; see the bottom of the title card panel). - 13/15
There are some really fascinating formal choices revealed here that drew my attention and, whether their implications are major or not, I'm very interested by them. - 14/15
This is my reading of "Little Nemo in Slumberland" #18. What's yours? - 15/15
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