"In the Land of Wonderful Dreams" dated December 31, 1911:
Transcript of Tweets by @LitleNemo1905 (APRIL 29, 2021):
Slumberland is great! Skating horses? Skating donkeys? Silly animals! - 1/23
I like seeing things that are impossible in the real world happen on panel! It reinforces the surreality and magic of Slumberland which we (well, I, at least) sometimes take for granted! - 2/23
That said, I don’t really love this strip… more for personal reasons than formal reasons, but there is some weird formal stuff going on here. - 3/23
Particularly the colour. We're really starting to see the huge inconsistency of colouring McCay's work… Doctor Pill is wearing a very uncharacteristic yellow here… - 4/23
The background is also really quite bland; it's pretty much all foreground here. To me, this screams "hurrying through the holidays", but it makes the visuality of the strip pretty lacklustre. - 5/23
Who is the Slumberlandian fellow who assist Doctor Pill in his plot against Flip this week? I don't recall seeing him before but he sure knows Flip! - 6/23
Presumably, Flip's reputation proceeds him, hence why the Slumberlandian is willing to partipate in the ruse… but that isn't even what strikes me most. - 7/23
It's his colouring… he isn't blue. I went back and look through some strips and it does seem as though there is a wide variety in colouring the Slumberlandians this time around, but for some reason, this one stood out to me. - 8/23
If nothing else, one could possible argue that the homogenization of Slumberlandians that was present in the Herald strips, has given way to a much more diverse group of Slumberland residents this go around. - 9/23
Now, here's what irks me just a bit… prior to becoming an educator, I was an animal trainer. The idea of abusing an animal into submission doesn't really make me too happy… - 10/23
Now, Flip does say "I'll swat you just once" in panel 9 and positive punishment training *is* a thing (just not mine), so it isn't like he's using techniques that are well outside the norm… - 11/23
Also, in positive punishment training, the goal is to use a severe punishment near the beginning and wean back as the animal learns… though I'm not on board with it, this is what Flip does. - 12/23
In panel 10, we see Flip actually training the mule how to skate and he is incredibly responsive (unlike moments previously). - 13/23
By panel 11, he's skating like a pro and chasing after Doctor Pill… clearly, the mule is trained pretty darn quickly. - 14/23
Though the visual of him and his black eye in panels 10 and 11 are very sad. - 15/23
I'm also starting to wonder how much the Princess and Nemo know about Doctor Pill's instigation of the feud he has with Flip… -16/23
In this strip, for instance, the two are off skating prior to Doctor Pill discussing with the Slumberlandian his plan for Flip. Is it possible that they were unaware of what he had in mind? - 17/23
In the penultimate panel, the Princess says "Oh! Look! He's after Doctor Pill Again!"… This comment seems as though she might be blaming Flip for starting trouble today? An exasperated sort of, "why can't he behave?" sort of thing… - 18/23
Certainly, it could be read as nothing more than a comment on what she sees without any sort of blame attached, but it made me wonder. - 19/23
Finally, it's interesting to me that a strip published on New Years Eve… isn't a holiday strip. - 20/23
This follows the peculiar decision to have a Christmas strip published on Dec. 17 rather than a week later… on Christmas Eve. - 21/23
Maybe the holidays are a little less important to the folks over at the NY American? It's a bit fun to speculate here. - 22/23
This is my reading of "In the Land of Wonderful Dreams" #320. What's yours? - 23/23
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