"Little Nemo in Slumberland" dated October 04, 1925:
Transcript of Tweets by @LittleNemo1905 (OCTOBER 28, 2021):
Truthfully, I'm not interested much in the narrative here… it's some straightforward trouble prompted by the residual disdain that Pill fosters for Flip. - 1/15
As it goes, Pill and Figures are tutoring the Princess and they can't concentrate (though they claim that it's the Princess who cant concentrate), while Flip and the boys are rehearsing their music. - 2/15
In response, they get someone to chop down the supports holding the house and they watch it slide into the river. - 3/15
Little do they know that they've put the Princess herself in grace danger; she went to visit the boys when Pill and Figures headed out to enact their plan. - 4/15
It's nice to see the group all together (without Pill and Figures) in the penultimate panel (though I miss Blutch). - 5/15
It is also beautifully drawn! The moon behind the trees on the right side looks almost like a mask; it's watchful eyes enjoying the scene on the river. - 6/15
That said, there are some troubling elements here… nothing really too *overt*, but some hidden visual/symbolic elements stand out. - 7/15
First, the boys are preparing for a minstrel show, which (as we all know) was one of America's first forms of mass entertainment and is also deeply entrenched in racism and racial prejudice: - 8/15
They are also practicing a historical minstrel song, "Old Black Joe": - 9/15
Finally, the crocodiles in the penultimate panel make me uneasy as they are connected symbolically to the pickaninny caricature (of which Impie is an example) who used to be chased, and often eaten, by the beasts. - 10/15
None of these nods to minstrelsy and Jim Crow era caricature reveal overt racism from McCay, but they do maybe indicate an attempt at including them for the sake of their popularity at the time. - 11/15
I wonder if, with Nemo's popularity waning slightly as we reach the end of its life, this was an attempt to infuse the strip with some other popular media? - 12/15
Regardless, it does position this strip within the tradition of intolerance and offers an interesting look at how normalized these practices were in this historical period. - 13/15
I view it as having less of an impact on the strip itself and more of an impact on my understanding of the temporal period from which this strip comes. For that reason, I found it quite fascinating to explore. - 14/15
This is my reading of "Little Nemo in Slumberland" #484. What's yours? - 15/15