"Little Nemo in Slumberland" dated May 28, 1911:
Transcript of Tweets by @LittleNemo1905 (APRIL 02, 2021):
Here, we have the first green tri-tone strip! It also features some pretty nifty vertical panels in two tiers, which allows McCay to do some really interesting things with motion. - 1/20
Take the top tier for instance. The reading pattern is standard (left to right, with a bit of a downward motion to it to accommodate the vertical panel content) and allows McCay to really show-off the monkey's movement from panel to panel. - 2/20
See how the moneky's leap from the street to the window really moves fluidly across the page, culminating in his dropping down on the oppressive organ grinder in panel 5? - 3/20 [INSERT IMAGE]
I love it. Seeing him beat the guy senseless, taking his organ, and making him climb up on the window is just awesome visuals! - 4/20
Sticking with formal discussions, I'm not sure what I think of that diptych created by panels 9 and 10. It doesn't really work for me. - 5/20
It must be a diptych, because there is no physical way that the organ grinder could've contorted his body to get his right leg to the left corner of the sill between those panels. - 6/20
Besides, his motion in panel 9 signals that he is lifting his leg to reach a window anyway. - 7/20
I *guess* it's possible that she saw the man climbing in and was surprised to see him, but then why go to a second window and not directly to where Nemo was? - 8/20
Then again, maybe she did. Her body language suggests that maybe she has just pushed Nemo out of the way of the man climbing into their house. Is the organ grinder's leg position a result of him falling from the sill? - 9/20
I find it ambiguous and, for once, I find the lack of certainty unsettling. - 10/20
Returning to our continuous discussion about McCay's allegorical rebuke of the Herald, I really like the monkey's comments in panel 7. - 11/20
He says, "You treat me a little better and I'll work for you faithfully! But I'll not stand your pulling me around." - 12/20
It's as though McCay was making clear that he *wanted* to be at the Herald and that, had he been treated a little better, he would've remained a faithful member of the Herald newspaper team. - 13/20
Nemo reiterates these feelings in panel 9: "treat your monk with kindness and he will treat you the same!" - 14/20
To me, this further reads like an explanation for the current series. Had they not been so difficult, the Herald might not have found themselves on the end of McCay's biting allegorical strips. - 15/20
The fact that the monkey turns the table and makes the organ grinder climb onto the sill, and that Nemo's mother gets frightened, could be a commentary about how McCay felt his voice was being replaced by that of the paper. - 16/20
Rather than McCay's vision of the strip entering into the homes of his readers, maybe he was feeling that editorial's intrusion was forcing it's way in? - 17/20
Nemo's mother's shock at seeing the man would then be McCay's way of commenting on his readers' perceived disapproval of this encroachment on his artistic intentions. - 18/20
Again, these "coincidences" seem far too tightly connected to be… well… coincidences. Live look into my office right now: - 19/20 [INSERT IMAGE]
This is my reading of "Little Nemo in Slumberland" #294. What's yours? - 20/20
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