"In the Land of Wonderful Dreams" dated March 06, 1913:
Transcript of Tweets by @LittleNemo1905 (JUNE 25, 2021):
After nearly, a month away from the strip, McCay returned by drawing a connection to Jonathan Swift's 1726 novel "Gulliver's Travels". - 1/17
My head canon is that Nemo must have been learning about or reading Swift (either in school or for fun) and now has the diminutive inhabitants of Lilliput stuck in his mind. - 2/17
For anyone unfamiliar with "Gulliver's Travels" or the Lilliputians (who, under Swift's pen, were satirical stand-ins for contemporary politicians) here is a quick primer: - 3/17
One thing that I really like is the spatial organization and the lower than usual panel density. Because this element of "Gulliver's Travels" is so heavily predicated on the juxtaposition of sizes, I think making this choice was wise. - 4/17
We've become so use to the standard 12-panel layout that seeing something like this stands out. It also has the benefit of emphasizing the inherent small-ness of the Lilliputians. - 5/17
The balloon layout of panel 1 is atrocious though. The balloon that must have been intended to be read first (marked as 1) ends up being read last by the nature of the organization. - 6/17
At least, that's how it was for me. I naturally began with the balloon marked as 2 and worked my way around. Was this different for anyone else? - 7/17
The Princess seems to recognized the Lilliputians and even comments that she knows of Gulliver and his travels. - 8/17
This continues the trend that we've seen in the past of literary, fabled, or mythical characters abandoning their fictional realities to become real, living and breathing characters within Slumberland or the dreamscape at large. - 9/17
Again, the strip is built around the abandonment of Flip (and Impie and Splinters by default). - 10/17
Now, Splinters is only seen in panel 2 and does not try to accompany Flip and Impie as they attempt to catch up to the group. I wonder why that is? - 11/17
Was McCay making a conscious choice about characters that he wanted to work with while in Lilliput? Did Splinters simply not want to chase after a group uninterested in his inclusion? - 12/17
Panel 2 is also heart-breaking because Impie watches the group abandon them from a distance, back in the castle… he is excluded not only from Nemo and the gang, but even Flip had abandoned him for his "new friend". - 13/17
That doesn't stop him from joining Flip as he tries to catch up to the train though. - 14/17
The strip ends with Flip preventing the group from passing over the bridge to get to Lilliput, already establishing the large versus small dynamic that the Lilliputians inclusion naturally elicits. - 15/17
It works well enough as a set-up; especially because that theme of size is so important to McCay throughout this series. - 16/17
This is my reading of "in the Land of Wonderful Dreams" #375. What's yours? - 17/17
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