"Little Nemo in Slumberland" dated August 14, 1910:
Transcript of Tweets by @LittleNemo1905 (FEBRUARY 17, 2021):
Well, fresh off of a launder and press, our adventures on Mars are coming to an end. - 1/17
Captain Drisel (a name!) decides that, rather than wait for the boys and look out for them (as was his assigned mission by the Princess), he'll just ditch 'em on Mars while he goes to get gas… - 2/17
This prompts our boys to rush towards their unceremonious departure from the red planet. - 3/17
Nemo is quite pleased with this; it seemed as though he was getting bored with what Mars had to offer. That said, the Secretary is upset because he feels that the boys haven't seen half of the best parts of Mars. - 4/17
I feel for the Secretary here. He seems to have grown quite fond of the boys and is back to being Mr. Gosh's lonely little lackey. - 5/17
Panel 5 (which, formally, is the centre of the entire strip) is really affective. Between the Secretary's body language and words there is plenty of pathos created for the fellow. - 6/17
That said, I doubt Flip feels any pathos for him… by the end of this series, Flip had become quite hostile towards the Secretary… - 7/17
This is largely because of last strip, so it's probably good that the boys are launching back to the airship. - 8/17
McCay does a great job formally in the final tier. By manipulating the size of the airship in the top right corner of each long vertical panel, he is able to depict distance and motion in a really interesting way. - 9/17
Obviously, the panels progress temporally but the space never *really* changes (the boys are depicted in virtually the same spots and positions in each). This allows the size of the ship to really communicate a lot very easily. - 10/17
Of note is the fact that Nemo mentions that Flip has never been to Earth… uhm… yes he has. He's been in your house Nemo… remember the Professor and the hijinks you had with him a while back? - 11/17
There are two possibilities here: a) Those adventures were not happening on Earth, but rather on some Slumberlandian Earth-replica… or b) Nemo forgot. - 12/17
Neither one really do it for me… if he forgot, why didn't Flip correct him? I mean, sure he hasn't seen *much* of Earth, but he has been there… - 13/17
If the early adventures with the Professor were taking place somewhere other than Earth, then who was the woman pretending to be Nemo's mother? And cousin? - 14/17
Obviously, we need to accept that when Nemo says "Earth" he means "dream Earth" because Flip (as an incorporeal dream entity) couldn't reach the waking world anyway… and, of course, we just left "dream Mars". - 15/17
Maybe I'm making this more complicated than it needs to be; can someone correct/clarify/propose a different reading here? - 16/17
This is my reading of "Little Nemo in Slumberland" #253. What's yours? - 17/17
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