"In the Land of Wonderful Dreams" dated February 02, 1913:
Transcript of Tweets by @LittleNemo1905 (JUNE 22, 2021):
Ok. First of all, the title card is lying. If *anybody* breaks up the ice boat party, it's Doctor Pill. - 1/11
Frankly, he deserves to get walloped with that massive snowball (of his own creation, I will add) even if the Princess and Nemo do not (I'll put Figures on the periphery of that one; he did give Pill the jacknife…). - 2/11
There really isn't too much to even say about this strip, I don't think. It's a pretty standard "abandon Flip and Impie to do something without them" sort of strip. - 3/11
They're wearing on me and I find them incredibly tiresome. This one isn't the worst of them all, but it's still not something I'm eager to see anymore. - 4/11
The layout is different and that, at least, is always welcome. I like the long vertical panels as it gives McCay some room to play with interesting linear (up and down) patterning. - 5/11
It begins to really pan out in panel 3 when you first read the group in the balloon, then move downwards to see the rope cut, and then get Flip and Impie's reactions. - 6/11
This continues in almost every panel after that and effectively creates an embedded, imaginary motion to the snowball so that when it plows into the boat it is really impactful both narratively and figuratively. - 7/11
The scaling of the snowball is also quite well done. McCay does a very good job using distance to indicate/create imagined movement and as the ball gets closer, you really get a sense for how large it has become. - 8/11
Impie is yet again a silent tag-along character here and even gets blamed by Flip for the rope breaking. - 9/11
I also enjoy that the boat is named "Arithmetic". I always hated math so the idea of smashing it with a massive snowball is appealing to me. - 10/11
This is my reading of "In the Land of Wonderful Dreams" #372. What's yours? - 11/11