"In the Land of Wonderful Dreams" dated April 13, 1913:
Transcript of Tweets by @LittleNemo1905 (JUNE 30, 2021):
I don't have too much to say about this strip… just a few observations. - 1/16
First, the idea to cut the holes in the floor to make dining with the "giants" easier is pretty brilliant. These Lilliputians are clever! - 2/16
The fact that Impie is the only one excluded from dinner is both unsurprising and representative of the segregationist attitudes of 1913. - 3/16
This strip seems to provide an interesting opportunity (when used in educational settings) to discuss the realities of Jim Crow era dining. - 4/16
In "Eating Jim Crow", Eplett (2016) discusses how even though black and white diners were separated, black Americans were often making/serving food within close proximity of white diners. - 5/16
In this sense, Impie's presence in the kitchen could be read as a common Jim Crow occurrence. That said, Impie's theft and disturbance could have been read by contemporary readers as a humorous subversion of expectation? - 6/16
The fact that he downs the soup bowl, steals the pie-cookie, and runs away with the coffee pot not to serve, but to take for himself, seems to be in keeping with the ways that McCay has handled Impie previously… - 7/16
In other words, Impie's actions counter the those that might be commonly expected during the Jim Crow era to elicit humour from both young and old readers. - 8/16
The King slipping into the soup really isn't anyone's fault but his own, I don't think… unless you want to argue that the vibrations created by the chase knocked him in (which is possible, I suppose). - 9/16
Of course, Impie tripping and knocking the entire bowl of hot soup into Doctor Pill's face (also filling the hole that he's siting in) was entirely caused by the chase. - 10/16
I won't lie; I quite enjoyed it. I am always most happy when Pill, rather than almost anyone else, takes the brunt of the gag. - 11/16
Finally, the final panel has an interesting comment about Nemo's dream habits in it. The voice says that since he's been reading "Gulliver's Travels" he dreams every night. - 12/16
Does this mean that there are adventures that we're missing? We only get one a week.. What about the other six nights? - 13/16
I found this very interesting, as we've discussed (in the distant past) how Nemo's dreaming works. This seems to suggest that what we witness on a weekly basis is a carefully curated offering… - 14/16
With that in mind, Nemo's adventures could occur every night of the week, not just on Saturdays. The thought is giving me a nasty case of FOMO… - 15/16
This is my reading of "In the Land of Wonderful Dreams" #379. What's yours? - 16/16