"In the Land of Wonderful Dreams" (also) dated September 01, 1912:
Transcript of Tweets by @LittleNemo1905 (JUNE 3, 2021):
Featured today is the second of two strips published on September 01, 1912. If you have the Taschen edition, dust it off and crack it open to this page because seeing it in its original size is just brilliant. - 1/22
Beyond its uniqueness by sharing a publication date with another strip, it is also special in the fact that it was printed across two-pages as a massive spread. - 2/22
How strange and brilliant it is to see this strip in its massive glory. Though there have been other examples, this is one where reading from the physical material copy is a huge benefit to the reader. - 3/22
Since size and spatial manipulation is such a concern for this strip, holding the massive tome in your hands (admittedly different then a lighter, but no less awkward, newspaper) really reinforces these ideas. - 4/22
The narrative is simple; Nemo is feeling unwell so, rather then visit Slumberland, Slumberland visits him! - 5/22
The Princess and Doctor Pill appear first and usher in Flip who has planned a circus for Nemo's delight. He even brings in an elephant to join the fun! - 6/22
Rightly concerned that his bed is not big enough to allow for an elephant to stomp on it comfortable, Flip declares that he can do anything and that Nemo should wait and see. - 7/22
Indeed, as if commanded by Flip's bravado, the page (which, because of its spread across two pages, is already positioned landscape in the manner of a bed) begins to demonstrate the bed elongating and the room becoming a circus tent. - 8/22
Rather than manipulate the panel sizes, which are, until the penultimate one, static and regular, McCay uses scale and distance to depict the growth. - 9/22
As each panel progresses, the reader is viewing the scene from a further and further distance away which allows us to perceive the bed as it too grows to accommodate the guests to Nemo's bedroom. - 10/22
It's a really interesting way to use panel content, rather than layout, to represent spatial distortion. Usually, we would see the panels themselves respond and grow in response to the size change, but that it's always possible. - 11/22
Certainly, we've seen examples of it occur previously (as far back as the second ever #LittleNemo strip in 1905), but how does one accomplish the same feat in all directions at the same time? - 12/22
It's this experimental question that I feel McCay was trying to answer here with this strip. He accomplishes it by representing the vertical growth through the background shift (bedroom to circus tent) and the horizontal by the bed's elongation. - 13/22 [INSERT IMAGE]
Another fun moment, this time exploring the temporal as opposed to spatial, is the final two panels. - 14/22
Nemo's, "Ouch! Get Off me!!!!" is duplicated in both panels 5 and 6; right down the exclamation marks! - 15/22
I read this repetition as suggesting that both panels occur simultaneously; in the same temporal moment. - 16/22
This would mean that the dream elephant's sitting on him startles him into wakefulness at the same time as we witness the kerfuffle that Flip's elephant is causing. - 17/22
This blurs the boundaries between the waking and sleeping world through temporal forces in a way that we rarely see. - 18/22
Most often, Nemo wakes up and comments on his dream, or doesn't speak at all, but rarely does he wake in such a fright that he believes he is still *in* his dream. - 19/22
That's not to say that it *hasn't* happened before, because it has. But we see it far less frequently than the traditional "wake-up" panels/gags, making it that much more special. - 20/22
It's been quite some time since we've seen this level of formal playfulness and I, for one, am very happy to see it return. This has quickly become one of my favourite strips out of the entire series of Nemo's exploits!! - 21/22
This is my reading of "In the Land of Wonderful Dreams" #353. What's yours? - 22/22