"In the Land of Wonderful Dreams" dated October 19, 1913:
Transcript of Tweets by @LittleNemo1905 (JULY 27, 2021):
Again, I'm not exactly sure what to make of the way that this strip begins… Last week, we were trying to meet the Mayor of Cliffville, yet now we're meeting the Mayor of Antedeluvia… - 1/17
Is Flip just misspeaking? Is this Cliffville? I suppose that I had previously thought Cliffville a city in Antediluvia, but that could simply be an example of me expecting modern political structure in a dreamscape. - 2/17
That said, whether Cliffville is an Antediluvian city or they're both cities on a different island, they're similar enough to each other and what we've seen in past strips, so it isn't too much of a stretch. - 2/17
Assuming that this Mayor is the same Mayor as last time, the group has somehow found a way to reach him and he is planning to show them something in his office at City Hall. - 3/17
The characters of the Antediluvian people continue to be a highly simianized caricature, which continues to be highly problematic… the Mayor might be the most eggregious, but the characters in the penultimate panel is pretty bad, too. - 4/17
The newspaper boy screaming with the stone tablet paper (which *might* have been funny if the caricature wasn't so bad; the "Baseball News" on the back of the fella with glasses is interesting) is probably the least simianized of the entire group. - 5/17
I found it particularly interesting that Flip was interested in finding the missing Impie immediately in panel 1. It was a moment that I really appreciated, as it signalled the characters desire to find their friend. - 6/17
It's entirely possible that Flip is thinking about Impie as his property and wants to find him, but I'm going to choose to read it the other way. - 7/17
Especially given his desire to keep Impie "healthy" as he is tossed off the dragon flyer (are those action lines in panel 5 necessary?). He tries to get him to move so that Flip doesn't crash into him and knock him down. - 8/17
The dragon flyer reminded me of our good old buddy, Bosco… gone too soon back in 1906. Except, rather than a chair in his mouth, this dragon has seats along it's back: - 9/17
Now, to go inside of City Hall… can we talk about the creepy "Big Brother" vibe that Wonder Bowl is giving off? - 10/17
I will admit that the idea of the constant supervision of one's population was a big surprise to me here… I wasn't expecting it to appear this early in the 1900s. - 11/17
This is 1913… Huxley wouldn't write "Brave New World" for another almost 20 years and Orwell wouldn't pen "Nineteen Eighty-Four" for 36 years. Were there other texts that discussed the control of their populations in this way at this point in the 20th Century? - 12/17
There very well might be, but I'm not aware of any. I'd be really interested to learn from the group here if anyone else has insights! - 13/17
The funniest part about the Wonder Bowl is that we don't actually see whether it works. They talk about seeing Impie, but… it isn't because of any magic, it's because he is literally leaning into the skylight. - 14/17
When Flip knocks him through, they land right on Doctor Pill who is looking very closely at the glassy water (serves him right; I love to see this), which kicks off the "riot" that the newspaper boy is shouting about. - 15/17
The fact that we don't *see* the riot is an interesting decision and one that McCay hasn't taken up much in the past… he usually relishes the fight sequences, so it shows a bit of restraint here and actually works pretty well. - 16/17
This is my reading of "In the Land of Wonderful Dreams" #405. What's yours? - 17/17