"In the Land of Wonderful Dreams" dated July 05, 1914:
Transcript of Tweets by @LittleNemo1905 (AUGUST 14, 2021):
This is one of the more beautifully drawn strips in a very, very long time! - 1/13
It makes me wonder… Was McCay aware that Nemo's time was coming to an end? Had Hearst already passed down the mandate to end McCay's adventures in Slumberland so that he would be free to focus on editorial illustration? - 2/13
I think this must be the case, especially given the irregularity with which Nemo went to print this past year… we are near the end and McCay must have been wondering whether he would ever be able to return to Slumberland again… - 3/13
I just see so much of McCay's most brilliant work here… the detail is, once again, quite nice, the strip is whimsical in it's "drilling to the centre of the earth" idea, and the consequences are quite funny. - 4/13
I also feel as though the images that we see around Slumberland being upended are quite… familiar. - 5/13
The circus has been an oft recurring idea in the #LittleNemo strips, we've seen automobiles frequently, the garden was an early and frequent feature, and the train reminds me of the travelling series… - 6/13
As I was reading this strip, I couldn't help but remember all of the wonderful adventures that Little Nemo and his friends have gone on… and it got me wondering if McCay was using this moment, combined with his expertise as an editorialist, to criticize Hearst? - 7/13
The narrative crux here is that Flip, Impie, and Splinters disrupt and destroy Slumberland (or at the least the city around the palace) with their underground machine. - 8/13
Could this not be symbolic of Hearst coming in and, through his edict to end the series, disrupting and destroying the comic series itself? - 9/13
If we read it like that, then the moments of seemingly random panel content displaying destruction can be tied together as intending to evoke some of our past adventures (in much the way it caused me to remember while reading it). - 10/13
I find this a provocative reading… we've seen McCay take editorial jabs in #LittleNemo before (I continue to maintain that the tri-tone series was just that, but there are others), so it makes sense that he would do it here. - 11/13
I'm really eager to hear what others have to say about this. Maybe I'm reaching, but I couldn't help but take the swing. - 12/13
This is my reading of "In the Land of Wonderful Dreams" #419. What's yours? - 13/13