"In the Land of Wonderful Dreams" dated January 14, 1912:
Transcript of Tweets by @LittleNemo1905 (May 1, 2021):
'm wondering why, in a palace made of candy, we don't see Candy Kid today. This would've been the perfect place to re-introduce him (or *all* of them)! - 1/19
Instead, we get a bear guard whom Doctor Pill sets against Flip and orders to guard the door of the palace so that he can't get in. - 2/19
I will point out that bears are not my favourite of McCay's animals… he seems pretty hit and miss with them honestly. Even in this strip, some depictions are better than others. - 3/19
That said, the mini-fight scene between Flip and the bear is pretty great. The gestural motion through closure from panel 2 to 3 is really cool. I can both *see* and *feel* the bear take Flip down. - 4/19
McCay also experiments a little bit with fight clouds here… I think the intent is to make the cloud out of bear fur rather than dust (not a "dust up", but a "fur flying" sort of gag). - 5/19
I'm not willing to say it doesn’t work at all, but I find it a little less successful than the previous McCaydian fight clouds that we’ve seen. - 6/19
This could just be because the embedded closure (three Flip heads/three bear heads) are all pointing out of the side of the cloud as opposed to appearing a bit more randomly. - 7/19
As a result, it just seems a bit too structured for me to depict a real fight… too much balance and not enough pure fighting chaos. - 8/19
All that said, Flip has really been making a habit of beating up animals lately… Not one of his best qualities, I must say. Though, to be fair… the bear started it this time so… - 9/19
What exactly is happening in panel 6? Does McCay change the scale entirely or am I missing something? - 10/19
Throughout the first tier, and most of the second, Flip is smaller than the bear guard… in panel 6, Flip (in costume with hat and cigar) is larger than the beat up bear that follows him. What gives? - 11/19
Has the bear shrunk physically to represent his defeat and embarrassment? I don't know. What do you all think? - 12/19
Seeing Flip get revenge on Pill by knocking him down the Taffie Chute isn't really all that surprising… but I'm having a hard time keeping up with the Princesses dizzying discrepancies in regards to her feelings about Flip. - 13/19
Not five strips ago, the Princess was wishing that Flip was with them. Even yesterday, she was advocating for Flip! Now she wants to hurry so that he won't catch up? What gives? - 14/19
The penultimate panel is also strange… she asks Flip why he is so cruel to Pill… does she really not know the things that Pill has done to Flip recently? - 15/19
I had wondered about this a couple strips ago and wondered if (maybe) she didn't really know that Pill was instigating the trouble… but she *does* know in this situation, without a doubt… - 16/19
So I'm not 100% sure what to make of it. I'll be interested to hear what others think. - 17/19
I'll also note that this is the first title card in the NY American series that doesn't feature Flip's name prominently! I wonder if we're going to be moving towards some differentiation? - 18/19
This is my reading of "In the Land of Wonderful Dreams" #322. What's yours? - 19/19
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