"Little Nemo in Slumberland" dated May 01, 1910:
Transcript of Tweets by @LittleNemo1905 (FEBRUARY 02, 2021):
Well, I hate Mr. Gosh. - 1/22
Not only does Mr. Gosh own the air, the property, and all the businesses… he also owns words. - 2/22
I mean… is there any better way to keep the commoners in line than to take away their ability to speak with one another? You can't revolt against a tyrannical government if you can't organize or speak with one another, right? - 3/22
And that really seems to be what this "B. Gosh & Company" actually is, doesn't it? They control not just the means of production, but also the communication system on Mars. - 4/22
Now, it's true (and slightly ironic since this is a comic strip) that nothing has yet been said of, say, visual or gestural communication, but since the linguistic in both the written and oral form held dominance in 1910, I suppose this makes sense. - 5/22
Gosh seems to have a complete and utter stranglehold on Mars' economy… if there is a "government" proper, we haven't been introduced to it… I wonder if that is coming? - 6/22
In the meantime, Gosh has sent his secretary to bring Nemo and our friends to him (including the ship captain, who has now joined our gang it seems) because of the promise of money. - 7/22
I wonder if Earth money, dream money, and Mars money are the same? - 8/22
A couple comments in this strip ticked me off a bit, and I thought I'd just draw attention to those briefly. - 9/22
First, Flip's comment about buying some words for Impie rubbed me the wrong way… possibly funny for children of 1910, but much less so today. - 10/22
It reminds me that Impie was forcefully taken from his home (by Flip) and that his continued refusal to speak the English language represents a resistance against forced assimilation. - 11/22
Flip's racist urge to force the English language onto Impie also draws attention to the fact that… the aliens speak English. - 12/22
This only alienates Impie and identifies him as the "other" even further… McCay is (probably unintentionally, but who knows) thereby suggesting that Impie is more "alien" than the Mars inhabitants are, which only continues to propagate racist ideologies of the time. - 13/22
I also don't like the plot point that 8,000 years ago, Gosh was a poor child… As a millennial who is quite tired of hearing the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" approach to success, it too irks me. - 14/22
Obviously this philosophical approach, intrinsic to the emergence of the American Dream some twenty years later, was quite pervasive in 1910. This isn't a judgement/attack through the lens of presentism, just a comment about reading it in 2021. - 15/22
All this said, there are some interesting formal things going on in this strip that I want to point out. - 16/22
First, that top tier is interesting. It's the first time we've seen McCay use this type of layout (a blockage) in quite a while now. It's been argued that creators should avoid this layout because it confuses readers… but I've never bought into that, myself. - 17/22
I enjoy the dynamic conversation is created in panels 2 and 3, which couldn't really be accomplished in the same way with any other layout. As a result, the pictorial sort of guides the reading so that it is (at least in my opinion) pretty tough to get lost along the way. - 18/22
Correct reading path in green, incorrect in red: - 19/22 [INSERT IMAGE]
I also really like tier three. Beginning with panel 8, each of our friends slowly begins to be lifted into the air as each panel progresses. Fist, Impie is lifted, followed by Flip, Nemo, the Captain, and the Secretary! - 20/22
It creates this really neat and very smooth sense of closure across the tier and even into the fourth (and final) tier as they're raised into the "air" one by one. - 21/22
This is my reading of "Little Nemo in Slumberland" #238. What's yours? - 22/22
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