Little Nemo

Little Nemo is the main fictional character in a series of weekly comic strips by Winsor McCay (1871-1934) that appeared in the New York Herald and William Randolph Hearst's New York American newspapers from October 15, 1905 – April 23, 1911 and April 30, 1911 – July 26, 1914; respectively.

The strip was first called Little Nemo in Slumberland and then In the Land of Wonderful Dreams when it changed papers. A brief revival of the original title occurred from 1924-27.

Characters and story
Although a comic strip, it was far from a simple children's fantasy; it was often dark, surreal, threatening, and even violent. The strip related the dreams of a little boy: Nemo (meaning "nobody" in Latin), the hero. The last panel in each strip was always one of Nemo waking up, usually in or near his bed, and often being scolded (or comforted) by one of the grownups of the household after crying out in his sleep and waking them. In the earliest strips, the dream event that woke him up would always be some mishap or disaster that seemed about to lead to serious injury or death, such as being crushed by giant mushrooms, being turned into a monkey, falling from a bridge being held up by "slaves", or gaining 90 years in age. The adventures leading to these disasters all had a common purpose: to get to Slumberland, where he had been summoned by King Morpheus, to be the "playmate" of his daughter, the Princess.

Sometime during early 1906, Nemo did indeed reach the gates of Slumberland, but had to go through about four months of troubles to reach the Princess. His problem was that he kept being awakened by Flip, who wore a hat with "Wake Up" written on it. One sight of Flip's hat was enough to take Nemo back to the land of the living during these early days. Although at first an enemy, Flip went on to become one of the recurring heroes. The others included: Dr. Pill, The Imp, the Candy Kid and Santa Claus as well as the Princess and King Morpheus.

The "Slumberland" of the title soon acquired a double meaning, referring not only to Morpheus's fairy kingdom, but to the state of sleep itself: Nemo would have dream-adventures in other imaginary lands, on the Moon and Mars, and in our own "real" world, made fantastic by the dream-state.

The strip was not a great popular success in its time. Most readers preferred the slapstick antics of such strips as Katzenjammer Kids, Happy Hooligan, and Buster Brown to the surreal fantasy of Nemo, and other comic strips like Krazy Kat. However, during the late 20th century and early 21st century, the strip received more recognition. Woody Gelman discovered many of the original strips at a cartoon studio where McKay's son worked in 1966. Many of the original drawings that Gelman recovered were displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art under the direction of curator A. Hyatt Mayor. In 1973, Gelman would publish a collection of Little Nemo strips in Italy. Among the most noticeable of its qualities were its intricate visual style — often with high levels of background detail — its vivid colours, fast pace of movement from panel to panel and the huge variety of strange characters and scenery.

Certain episodes of the strip are particularly famous. Any list of these would have to include the Night of the Living Houses (said to be the first comic strip to enter the collection of the Louvre) wherein Nemo and a friend are chased down a city street by a gang of tenement houses on legs; the Walking Bed, in which Nemo and Flip ride over the rooftops on the increasingly long limbs of Nemo's bed (see illustration); and the Befuddle Hall sequence, wherein Nemo and his friends attempt to find their way out of a funhouse environment of a Beaux-Arts interior turned topsy-turvy. McCay's mastery of perspective, and the extreme elegance of his line work, make his visions graphically wondrous. The eccentric dialogue is delivered in a dreamy deadpan, and often appears to be hastily jammed into tiny word balloons that can scarcely contain it. A typical line: "Whoever named this place Befuddle Hall knew his business! I am certainly befuddled."

The strips, along with most of the rest of McCay's works, fell into the public domain in most of the world on January 1, 2005, 70 years after McCay's death (see Copyright and the EU's Directive harmonizing the term of copyright protection for details). All of the works published before 1923 are in the public domain in the United States. The complete set of Little Nemo strips is available in a single volume from Taschen: Little Nemo 1905-1914 (ISBN 3-8228-6300-9), leaving out only the later revival from the 1920s, which is still under copyright in the U.S.

110 of the most famous strips have been reprinted in their original size and colors in the 2005 collection Little Nemo in Slumberland, So Many Splendid Sundays (ISBN 978-0-9768885-9-8), a 16x21 inch hardcover book from Sunday Press Books.

Theater
An 'operatic spectacle' was based on the strip, with music by Victor Herbert (composer of Babes in Toyland) and lyrics by Harry B. Smith. This lavish production opened on October 20, 1908 in the New Amsterdam Theatre in New York, ran for 111 performances, and closed January 23, 1909. The opera introduced a new character called 'the dancing missionary', who was to appear in several episodes of the comic strip during 1909, and the word whiffenpoof.

In spring 2007, an operatic adaptation of the comic strip was announced to be presented in spring 2009 by the Sarasota Opera, composed by the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ned Rorem. He announced on July 20, 2008 that he would not be able to complete it. Sarasota Opera announced in January 2010 that New York composer Daron Hagen and librettist Sandy McClatchy would create the work instead, for May 2012 premiere.

Films
James Stuart Blackton and Winsor McCay directed a ten-minute short film based on the comic strip, of which two minutes were animated. The film was first released on April 8, 1911. The first animated effort of McCay, it later achieved the status of an early animated classic. Its on screen title is Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald and his Moving Comics, but it is usually referred to as Little Nemo. This version was named to the National Film Registry in December 2009.

In 1984, Arnaud Sélignac produced and directed a film called Nemo or Dream One starring Jason Connery, Harvey Keitel and Carole Bouquet. It involves a little boy called Nemo who also wears pajamas and travels to a fantasy world, but otherwise the connection to McCay's strip is a loose one. In this film the fantasy world is a dark and dismal beach, and Nemo encounters characters from other works of fiction rather than those from the original strip. Instead of Flip or the Princess, Nemo meets Zorro, Alice, and Jules Verne's Nautilus (which was led by Captain Nemo) (see IMDB entry).

An animated feature film entitled Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland (known simply as "Nemo" in Japan) was finally released in Japan in July 1989 and in the US in 1992. It was directed by Masami Hata, Masanori Hata and William T. Hurtz from a screenplay by Chris Columbus and Richard Outten. Originally conceived in 1982, this Japanese-American co-production had a long and tumultuous history which included a 1984 pilot by Ghibli director Yoshifumi Kondō. Though regarded as a commercial failure in the States, it nevertheless went on to be nominated for and won several industry awards for its brilliant animation quality. Upon its initial VHS video release in 1993, it topped the charts for more than a month, selling over 2 million copies. The film was later released on DVD in October 2004, and quickly went out of print the following year. The DVD was once again released in December 2008.

Other media
In 1990, Capcom produced a video game for the NES, titled Little Nemo: The Dream Master (known as Pajama Hero Nemo in Japan), a licensed game based on the 1989 film. The film would not see a US release until 1992, two years after the game's US release, so the game is often thought to be a standalone adaptation of Little Nemo, not related to the film. An arcade game called simply Nemo was also released in 1989.

Throughout the years, various pieces of Little Nemo merchandise have been produced. In 1941, Rand, McNally & Co. published a Little Nemo children's storybook. Little Nemo in Slumberland in 3-D was released by Blackthorne Publishing in 1987; this reprinted Little Nemo issues with 3-D glasses. A set of 30 Little Nemo postcards was available through Stewart Tabori & Chang in 1996. In 1993, as promotion for the 1989 animated film, Hemdale produced a Collector's Set which includes a VHS movie, illustrated storybook, and cassette soundtrack. In 2001, Dark Horse Comics released a Little Nemo statue and tin lunchbox.

The character and themes from the comic strip Little Nemo were used in a song "Scenes from a Night's Dream" written by Phil Collins and Tony Banks of the progressive rock group Genesis on their 1978 recording, ...And Then There Were Three... Another progressive rock group, from Germany, called Scara Brae also recorded a musical impression of the comic on their rare self titled disc from 1981 (the track was actually recorded 2 years earlier). Their concept piece was revived on the second album by the Greek band Anger Department, oddly called 'The Strange Dreams of A Rarebit Fiend', again after a McCay-comic. Their 'Little Nemo' was chosen for a theatre play, which was suggested for the cultural program for the Olympic Games in 2004.

At Universal's Islands of Adventure, at the Toon Lagoon section, Little Nemo can be seen falling out of his bed near a shop.

"Little Nemo in Slumberland" is also the inspiration for the video of the 1989 song Runnin' Down a Dream by Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers.

Cultural influences
Since its publishing, Little Nemo has had an influence on other artists, including Alan Moore, in Miracleman #4, when the Miracleman family end up in a palace called "Sleepy Town," which has imagery similar to Little Nemo's. In Moore (and J.H. Williams III)'s Promethea, a more direct pastiche - "Little Margie in Misty Magic Land" - showed Moore's inspiration and debt to McCay's landmark 1905 strip. The Sandman series occasionally references Little Nemo as well. Examples include The Sandman: The Doll's House, where an abused child escapes into dreams styled after McCay's comics and using a similar 'wake-up' mechanism, and The Sandman: Book of Dreams (pub. 1996), which features George Alec Effinger's short "Seven Nights in Slumberland" (where Nemo interacts with Neil Gaiman's characters The Endless).

In children's literature, Maurice Sendak has said that this strip inspired his book In the Night Kitchen, and William Joyce included several elements from Little Nemo in his children's book Santa Calls, including appearances by Flip and the walking bed.

In 1984, Italian comic artist Vittorio Giardino started producing a number of few-page stories under the title Little Ego, a parodic adaptation of Little Nemo, in the shape of erotic comics. Although not suitable for children, Giardino's work succeeded in imitating Winsor McCay's exquisite drawing technique, and the level of surrealism was fairly achieved.

The comic strip Cul de Sac includes a strip-within-the-strip, "Little Neuro," a parody of Little Nemo. Neuro is a little boy who hardly ever leaves his bed.

Collections

 * Little Nemo 1905-1906 Nostalgia Press
 * Little Nemo in the Palace of Ice and Further Adventures Dover, ISBN 0-486-23234-4
 * Little Nemo In Slumberland, 1905-07 Fantagraphics ISBN 0-930193-63-6
 * Little Nemo In Slumberland, 1907-08 Fantagraphics ISBN 0-930193-64-4
 * Little Nemo In Slumberland, 1908-10 Fantagraphics ISBN 1-56097-025-1
 * Little Nemo In Slumberland, 1910-11 Fantagraphics ISBN 0-56097-045-6 ISBN 1-85286-153-3
 * Little Nemo In Slumberland #1 Blackthorne Publishing, 1986
 * Little Nemo In Land of Wonderful Dream, Part 1, 1911-12 Fantagraphics ISBN 0-924359-35-8
 * Little Nemo In Land of Wonderful Dream, Part 1, 1913-14 Fantagraphics ISBN 1-56097-130-4
 * Little Nemo, 1924-25 Fantagraphics, unpublished ?
 * Little Nemo, 1926-27 Fantagraphics, unpublished ?
 * Little Nemo, 1905-14 Evergreen/Taschen, 2000, ISBN 3-8228-6300-9
 * Little Nemo in Slumberland: So Many Splendid Sundays (1905-10) Sunday Press Books, 2005 ISBN 0-9768885-0-5
 * Little Nemo in Slumberland: So Many Splendid Sundays, Vol. 2 (1906-24) Sunday Press Books, 2008 ISBN 0-9768885-5-6
 * Best of Little Nemo in Slumberland Stewart, Tabori, & Chang, ISBN 1-55670-647-2
 * Little Nemo in Slumberland, v1 (1905-09) Checker Books ISBN 1-933160-21-7
 * Little Nemo in Slumberland, v2 (1910-1926) Checker Books ISBN 1-933160-22-5

Gallery
Full Little Nemo in Slumberland strips: