"Little Nemo in Slumberland" dated March 07, 1926:
Transcript of Tweets by @LittleNemo1905 (NOVEMBER 20, 2021):
This strip, an exercise in fragile masculinity, seems so strange to me given the ones that we've seen recently… - 1/11
I mean, the training montage (which spans panels 3-6) is 50% animal cruelty which seems to be at odds with some of the more pro-animal treatment strips we've seen (including #502, which we read like that): - 2/11
Anyway, the fight happens because Nemo is angry that he has been called out as incapable of fighting by some yet unknown individual. - 3/11
It seems as though he is committed to proving to the Princess that he can, in fact, fight… though she wants nothing to do with the shenanigans. - 4/11
What makes this particularly interesting is that we've seen lots of boxing strips that prove Nemo had fighting prowess… like this one: - 5/11
And this one: - 6/11
This strip too seems to demonstrate Nemo's punching strength (he does knock this kid into the ropes with a single punch), but he is also knocked out as easily… - 7/11
I really enjoy seeing the way that the final wake-up panel gets indented as the young challenger bumps into it. It's always cool seeing how the spatial constraints of the page react to the narrative diegetic content. - 8/11
Finally, the young challenger's father trying to challenge Flip's dad to a fight was hilarious… because, well… he's the sun. - 9/11
Of course, McCay's readers at this point might not even know that… we've never been reminded of that fact in the revival series, so maybe it's only hilarious to us? - 10/11
This is my reading of "Little Nemo in Slumberland" #506. What's yours? - 11/11