"In the Land of Wonderful Dreams" dated May 26, 1912:
Transcript of Tweets by @LittleNemo1905 (MAY 18, 2021):
First, I'm grateful to Doctor Pill this strip because he explicitly names the location that we are currently visiting: Mother Gooseville! - 1/26
For someone of McCay's imagination, the name of this part of the dreamscape is pretty… well, unimaginative? - 2/26
I think that can be forgiven though, because this strip is pretty great from top to bottom. I really enjoyed it (even if the teacher is the bad guy this week). - 3/26
For the most part, the group seems to work pretty well together today. There isn't any real moment of conflict between any of our core group members. - 4/26
That said, in panel 1, Flip does hold Impie back from grabbing hold of Mary's lamb… I'm not sure what that was about, to be honest… - 5/26
Because it is in panel 1, we don't have any previous panels to help with the closure here… we have to just assume that Impie made a motion towards the lamb, I guess? - 6/26
Why he wants the lamb? There really is not explanation given, so it's left to the reader to come up with something, I suppose. Anyone have any ideas? - 7/26
From one confusing character moment, we move to one revealing character moment. Flip declares that he has no interest in joining the group inside the school house because he "hates school". - 8/26
I think it certainly tracks that a trickster and troublemaker character like Flip would have some discipline issues with school… in fact, we've seen this situation before (February 07, 1909): - 9/26
While we don't know exactly why Flip hates school, I think that we can make some pretty good inferences based on his character. - 10/26
That said, Pill's response is a bit aggressive… his "hot-and-col" relationship with Flip is dizzying… wasn't he calling him clever like two strips ago? - 11/26
Unlike Flip, who at least gets an invite, Impie isn't even acknowledged here… a silent, but very noticeable, nod to school race-based segregation that was still a sad reality in the early 1910s. - 12/26
Side note: This is the second straight strip that Impie has not spoken… strange, considering McCay made a point of his learning English only recently… - 13/26
Now, the lamb chase begins in tier two and ends in tier three when Flip enters Little Bo Peeps. I really like the forward momentum created by the chase. - 14/26
More than the momentum though, I like the abrupt stops created in panel 7 and 9. Though I don't like to see Impie take the brunt of the joke (falling in the moat), the way the motion slams shut with the door is formally intriguing. - 15/26
The formal abruptness of the stop in Bo Peep's place is rivaled by the character moment here displayed by Flip… rather than challenge the Rams for impeding his chase, he gets them on his side… - 16/26
I would hate to be that teacher now… eeoooboy… - 17/26
Of course, as we learn in the wake up panel, Nemo's *real* teacher might just get the last laugh… - 18/26
This week's wake up panel does create an interesting narrative conundrum for us though… Unless this is a Sunday School classroom, why is Nemo in school on a Sunday? - 19/26
I've never known Sunday School rooms that resembled school rooms this closely, but I can't say that I've seen every single Sunday School room… and maybe they were different in 1912? - 20/26
It was just a fascinating moment of narrative friction for me that I wanted to bring up. - 21/26
Finally, you might remember that this isn't the first "Mary had a Little Lamb" strip that McCay has done… Back during the tritone series (July 23, 1911) we also discussed this nursery rhyme: - 22/26
This time though, McCay remixes it with references to "Little Bo Peep". Once booted out of the classroom, the lamb makes a beeline for Bo Peep's place… could this lamb be one of the "sheep" she lost in her nursery rhyme? - 23/26
This might suggest some heavy internal conflicts in Mother Gooseville… especially if Mary stole Little Bo Peep's lost sheep!! - 24/26
While that's a fun idea, it might be a stretch… first of all, Mary's animal is a "lamb"… still technically, a sheep, I suppose, but different enough. - 25/26
This is my reading of "In the Land of Wonderful Dreams" #338. What's yours? - 26/26