"In the Land of Wonderful Dreams" dated April 6, 1913:
Transcript of Tweets by @LittleNemo1905 (JUNE 29, 2021):
Well, we've reached one of the most controversial and hotly debated comic strips in the #LittleNemo oeuvre… well, at least recently. - 1/25
A few little observations before we get to the meat and bones of what I want to think/talk about… - 2/25
I'm not exactly sure how this strip was published… but the changes require that we discuss a few things. - 3/25
First, the pictorial depiction that replaces our usual faces on a field of red is our group flying through the night sky; Nemo, the Princess, and Pill in a magnificent Slumberlandian chariot, and Flip and Impie (the "Others") on a mule. - 4/25
This reinforces previously concretized conceptions of how the two are most frequently narratively treated. - 5/25
Next, we have acknowledgement that the page we're reading is not from the New York American, but the comics supplement pages of another newspaper. - 6/25
In the case of the Comic Strip Library, that newspaper is the "Los Angeles Examiner". In Taschen, the page is reproduced from the "Omaha Daily Bee" and in Ulrich Merkl's #Dinomania, the page reproduced comes from the "St. Louis Republic." - 7/25
I don't know of any other #LittleNemo strips that we don't have copies of from the pages of the newspaper that they were originally published in… so why *this* strip? - 8/25
Obviously, these strips were published in many newspapers across the country, but Is it really possible that this strip was never published at Nemo's home paper? Does anyone actually know the historical answer to this because it's driving me sort of crazy… - 9/25
Moving on… I absolutely adore seeing the Princess' hair let down in panel 1 as it is being braided. There is a vulnerability to the Princess here, in this moment, that we don't normally see. - 10/25
I've grown very fond of her character in part because I've enjoyed watching how her relationship with the other characters has developed (Flip, in particular), but also because I see her as a strong and independent young woman. - 11/25
Admittedly, this has lessened since the earlier strips at the Herald (and I largely blame Pill for this; might explain my disdain for him), but I do think that every once in a while she has a really interesting moment. - 12/25
It's too bad that Nemo isn't there for this… I'm so interested in how he would've reacted. - 13/25
Now, the narrative is where things get… interesting. Doctor Pill instructs the Lilliput King to have an airplane bombard Flip with a brick in order to keep him from causing trouble… thus creating the conditions for the trouble that Flip causes. - 14/25
Of course, the first brick misses Flip and lands on Impie. As he sits wondering what happened, Flip begins to scan the skies for the culprit… when he finds it, he sets off on chasing it. - 15/25
What results is an important moment in Kaiju history… Flip climbs a building and snatches an airplane out of the sky. Remind you of anything? - 16/25
In his book, "Dinomania: The Lost Art of Winsor McCay, the Secret Origin of King Kong, and the Urge to Destroy New York" Ulrich Merkl (2015) posits that McCay directly influenced King Kong's creation. - 17/25 [INSERT IMAGES]
He says: "This sequence is, in my opinion, the prototype for the best-known scene in film history: King Kong fighting a duel to the death with a group of war planes atop the Empire State Building." (p. 201) - 18/25 [INSERT IMAGES]
Through a very detailed exploration of panel-by-panel close readings and exploration of Merian C. Cooper's inspirations (both potential and identified), he makes a compelling argument for the case. - 19/25
Of course, he also recognizes that he is "skating on thin ice" (p. 191) with his argument and there are many, many out there who would dismiss this suggestion out of hand. - 20/25
It's my belief that, whether or not Merkl's reading establishes the burden of proof necessary to say definitively that McCay inspired Cooper (even if that is his goal),… - 21/25
…the reading that identifies and draws connections between the film and comics or the comics and film are nonetheless valuable demonstrations of transactional approaches to reading. - 22/25
As far as I'm concerned, Cooper's intentions are irrelevant; I see Flip climbing the Lilliputian tower when I think about King Kong. Similarly, I see Kong in this strip. I have a difficult time separating one from the other. - 23/25
It's a really wonderful example of what this project aims to establish on a larger scale, and I wish that more researchers would skate that thin ice and put their transactional readings out there for the purposes of establishing new horizons of interpretation. - 24/25
This is my reading of "In the Land of Wonderful Dreams" #378. What's yours? - 25/25