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The Complete Little Nemo in Slumberland #1
Little Nemo in Slumberland, Edição Integral, Volume I: 1905-1907
Winsor McCay's beautiful dreamscapes appeared in the New York Herald between 1905 and 1911, and the comic strip "Little Nemo" is considered by some to be the best, most brilliant comic strip ever published. Six-year-old Nemo (Latin for no one) falls asleep in his bed and is transported to the fantastical Slumberland--at the request of King Morpheus--where he encounters all kinds of strange creatures. At the end of each trip he wakes up, unsure of what was real and what was a dream. The exquisitely detailed, art-nouveau-style colored panels in this edition are reproduced from rare, vintage file-copy pages. Alongside George Herriman's bizarre Krazy Kat, McCay's work helped to create the grammar of comic art. This Little Nemo collection--an entertaining romp into Slumberland--also provides a lovely glimpse into the origins of an art form.
95 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1905
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262 people want to read
About the author
Winsor McCay
159 books92 followersWas an American cartoonist and animator, best known for the comic strip Little Nemo (begun 1905) and the animated cartoon Gertie the Dinosaur (1914). For legal reasons, he worked under the pen name Silas on the comic strip Dream of the Rarebit Fiend.
A prolific artist, McCay's pioneering early animated films far outshone the work of his contemporaries, and set a standard followed by Walt Disney and others in later decades. His comic strip work has influenced generations of artists, including creators such as William Joyce, André LeBlanc, Moebius, Maurice Sendak, Chris Ware and Bill Watterson.
A prolific artist, McCay's pioneering early animated films far outshone the work of his contemporaries, and set a standard followed by Walt Disney and others in later decades. His comic strip work has influenced generations of artists, including creators such as William Joyce, André LeBlanc, Moebius, Maurice Sendak, Chris Ware and Bill Watterson.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
April 18, 2019
The art of Winsor McCay is extremely beautiful and it never ceases to amaze. His surreal, dreamy worlds that fill each page of Little Nemo's adventures make the story seem completely secondary.
April 28, 2024
De estética art nouveau, conseguimos perceber perfeitamente o quão inovador foi Winsor McCay nesta brilhante criação (tanto na organização de vinhetas, como na posterior eliminação da narração por baixo de cada vinheta). Conseguimos perceber igualmente que terá sido inspiração para quase tudo o que veio a seguir (ou muito me engano, ou Walt Disney terá sido um desses inspirados por McCay, por exemplo)...
October 31, 2010
You can watch McCay experimenting and developing Little Nemo in this book. He begins with the narrative text squeezed into the bottom of each panel, then tries putting it all at the beginning, then, thankfully, abandons it entirely. This volume is not the best, but it's still very very good.
A lot of people, including Bill Watterson (Calvin & Hobbes; you can also see a LOT of Nemo influence when you compare the two) and all sorts of scholars, consider the dialogue to be the weakest point of Little Nemo, an incidental addition that isn't even hardly worth reading. I disagree. I love the animated yet stilted dialogue, and McCay is sometimes delightfully witty in a dry way. Sometimes the dialogue is simply exclamations or descriptions of what's happening in the art, but if you pay attention you'll see that each character has an individual personality and speaking style; if they are recurring, they become more well-rounded along the way (Nemo, for example, is shown to be impatient, kindhearted, agreeable but sometimes stubborn, curious, etc.). And as to the plots, they're fantastically imaginative. I particularly like when they take the form of solid nightmares, such as the day where Nemo is loaned stilts, pursued by long-legged birds, falls, and is thoroughly speared.
For me, Little Nemo is the apex of nearly every sort of media. I feel like I'm falling in when I read it...into colors, imagination, the past, wisdom, dreams, nightmares, romance, antagonism, opulence...I find inspiration and a sort of revival of spirit. There's only one word for this: love.
I love Little Nemo in Slumberland, and its faded popularity bums me out.
A lot of people, including Bill Watterson (Calvin & Hobbes; you can also see a LOT of Nemo influence when you compare the two) and all sorts of scholars, consider the dialogue to be the weakest point of Little Nemo, an incidental addition that isn't even hardly worth reading. I disagree. I love the animated yet stilted dialogue, and McCay is sometimes delightfully witty in a dry way. Sometimes the dialogue is simply exclamations or descriptions of what's happening in the art, but if you pay attention you'll see that each character has an individual personality and speaking style; if they are recurring, they become more well-rounded along the way (Nemo, for example, is shown to be impatient, kindhearted, agreeable but sometimes stubborn, curious, etc.). And as to the plots, they're fantastically imaginative. I particularly like when they take the form of solid nightmares, such as the day where Nemo is loaned stilts, pursued by long-legged birds, falls, and is thoroughly speared.
For me, Little Nemo is the apex of nearly every sort of media. I feel like I'm falling in when I read it...into colors, imagination, the past, wisdom, dreams, nightmares, romance, antagonism, opulence...I find inspiration and a sort of revival of spirit. There's only one word for this: love.
I love Little Nemo in Slumberland, and its faded popularity bums me out.
December 13, 2012
If for no other reason, fans of comics should at least page trough one of the Little Nemo collections to take in the astonishingly beautiful art. (Something about the art reminds me of John R. Neil's Oz illustrations. This probably shouldn't be too surprising, as they were both working with wild fantasy worlds during roughly the same time period.) There's wildly surreal imagery, of course, and more creative layouts than I had expected, but all that aside, the art is truly beautiful. The way McKay used color adds to the dreamlike quality of the already surreal images.
The writing... Well, that's another thing entirely. The first thing to keep in mind is that these strips were originally full newspaper pages. So even though this particular volume is a large size, it's still smaller than the comics were meant to be written. The text is tiny, and I had to limit myself to reading only a couple of pages at a time to avoid serious eye strain. At first, each panel had a text description of the action (often in long, even run-on sentences), later switching to a complete synopsis at the top of the strip, and finally (mercifully for my eyes) dropping the text entirely. The word balloons are often hilariously deadpan, and sometimes obviously squeezed in to balloons made too small. The writing is not the strong point here, but I concentrated on the art and the situations and still enjoyed myself.
A note: this is indeed a product of its time, and I stumbled across at least one racist caricature while reading. Whether it was standard or acceptable at the time is beside the point: I didn't like it seeing it, and I know many others won't, either.
The writing... Well, that's another thing entirely. The first thing to keep in mind is that these strips were originally full newspaper pages. So even though this particular volume is a large size, it's still smaller than the comics were meant to be written. The text is tiny, and I had to limit myself to reading only a couple of pages at a time to avoid serious eye strain. At first, each panel had a text description of the action (often in long, even run-on sentences), later switching to a complete synopsis at the top of the strip, and finally (mercifully for my eyes) dropping the text entirely. The word balloons are often hilariously deadpan, and sometimes obviously squeezed in to balloons made too small. The writing is not the strong point here, but I concentrated on the art and the situations and still enjoyed myself.
A note: this is indeed a product of its time, and I stumbled across at least one racist caricature while reading. Whether it was standard or acceptable at the time is beside the point: I didn't like it seeing it, and I know many others won't, either.
October 1, 2021
WRONG TITLE = ISBN 0930193636 IS BOOK 2
It took me until I looked at the date of these (1907) to realize that I have been going backwards in eras progressively for a few years now. Is that something that happens to sequential art narrative junkies? When I look at what I've been reading in the last year I see drastic steps back. The final two being Krazy and Ignatz -> Little Nemo in Slumberland. Nothing earlier interests me but I'm reading Hogarth's Tarzan right now.
89 Nemos take quite some time to read- I was overwhelmed by the end but will probably still get another of these if they ever drop in price like this did (in horrible condition).
Flip really gets on my nerves. He's a tacky device.
It took me until I looked at the date of these (1907) to realize that I have been going backwards in eras progressively for a few years now. Is that something that happens to sequential art narrative junkies? When I look at what I've been reading in the last year I see drastic steps back. The final two being Krazy and Ignatz -> Little Nemo in Slumberland. Nothing earlier interests me but I'm reading Hogarth's Tarzan right now.
89 Nemos take quite some time to read- I was overwhelmed by the end but will probably still get another of these if they ever drop in price like this did (in horrible condition).
Flip really gets on my nerves. He's a tacky device.
July 7, 2015
I felt I should read this as a part of my education in comics. I knew only that it was a classic. Each page is one short tale that was printed in the Sunday comics of the New York Herald starting in 1905. Together, they have the story arc of Nemo trying to get to Slumberland to meet the Princess. It looks like a child's comic, yet there are bits and pieces of the stories that can really appeal to adults. I am thinking "Magic Roundabout" here. A bit quirky. There are a few references that are racist or sexist, but this is definitely 1905, so I just sighed and moved on.
It's the pictures that are the main attraction along with the layout. Seeing 2 years of comics here shows the development of the themes and the layout ideas. The first months were fairly straightforward. Then creative layouts and amazing characters started appearing more regularly. I would love to see the images in their original full size. The copy I read was 32 cm. tall and the print was really tiny and a strain to read. I know it would be much better at a larger size. That would have cost a lot to print, I know.
Anyway, definitely worth checking out for the beautiful and fanciful art and the incredible imagination in these stories.
It's the pictures that are the main attraction along with the layout. Seeing 2 years of comics here shows the development of the themes and the layout ideas. The first months were fairly straightforward. Then creative layouts and amazing characters started appearing more regularly. I would love to see the images in their original full size. The copy I read was 32 cm. tall and the print was really tiny and a strain to read. I know it would be much better at a larger size. That would have cost a lot to print, I know.
Anyway, definitely worth checking out for the beautiful and fanciful art and the incredible imagination in these stories.
Read
April 9, 2009Winsor McKay is not forgotten, but it's hard to get a good feel for his work.
Tbe edition I saw was anything but complete, and this, the first of a multivolume set, is likely to be more nearly so, but I haven't seen this set, so I can't say.
The dialogue and storylines in these surreal cartoons are almost incidental--so much so that the speech balloons are often scrunched up against the margins. It's the grand, elaborate pictures that hold center stage.
Tbe edition I saw was anything but complete, and this, the first of a multivolume set, is likely to be more nearly so, but I haven't seen this set, so I can't say.
The dialogue and storylines in these surreal cartoons are almost incidental--so much so that the speech balloons are often scrunched up against the margins. It's the grand, elaborate pictures that hold center stage.
February 6, 2022
Clever stuff for being so last century. Thank goodness he stopped the text exposition. That made it more of a chore to read and I wasnt to appreciate the art. Nemo sure manages to look bamboozled a lot.
January 26, 2008
The best comic-strip art ever, McCay's illustrations are fantastic in the most literal terms imaginable.
June 29, 2017
The art-nouveau-style colored panels are wonderful but the story line is repetitious and at times monotonous.
August 29, 2019
I have been a devotee of Winsor McCay since the 1970's when I picked up a History of the Newspaper Comics book and he had his own section. When I was at college, I took an art appreciation course and we were assigned the task to write a biography/critique about any artist. My teacher wanted us to do Renoir, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, or any other hundreds of classic artists you can think of. I told him I wanted to write mine on Winsor McCay. He raised an eye brow and said okay. It was the first time in his 20 years of teaching that someone did a report on a cartoonist. I did a ton of research (even found his obituary) and the outcome was an "A."
Jump forward to the 1980's when i subscribed to "The Comics Journal" by Fantagraphics Books. Its focus was on early 20th Century comics. I received the monthly subscription for a few years until, sadly, the magazine went under. But before it did, they announced that they were going to publish the Complete Little Nemo in Slumberland in several volumes covering 1-2 year spans each in full color and in an over-sized book. Not as big as the original newspaper size but the goal was to make it large enough to give the reader a sense of the genius and incredible talent of Winsor McCay. I bought each volume as they came out so I have all first editions.
You cannot get this book any more...at least very easily. And I noticed that Goodreads had another book that featured the entire run from 1905-1914. This book being reviewed was Volume One but the others came out in five volumes after that.
After all of that - I cannot give this any less than 5 stars. I will probably search the Goodreads book lists for the other editions and give them 5 stars too.
There have been few artists like WInsor McCay. This is the man who invented the animated film. Yes he did, with "Gertie the Dinosaur" in 1914. He drew thousands of individual drawings and took photos of each and then turned it into a moving picture. But his skills were such that he could do that!
Others have noted that McCay influenced a lot of modern artists including Maurice Sendak, Hal Foster, and Bill Watterson and many more that I am failing to mention. How about Jerry Scott (Zits)? At the very least, you should take a look at this book or any of the books in this series just to be amazed at the detail in the art.
Jump forward to the 1980's when i subscribed to "The Comics Journal" by Fantagraphics Books. Its focus was on early 20th Century comics. I received the monthly subscription for a few years until, sadly, the magazine went under. But before it did, they announced that they were going to publish the Complete Little Nemo in Slumberland in several volumes covering 1-2 year spans each in full color and in an over-sized book. Not as big as the original newspaper size but the goal was to make it large enough to give the reader a sense of the genius and incredible talent of Winsor McCay. I bought each volume as they came out so I have all first editions.
You cannot get this book any more...at least very easily. And I noticed that Goodreads had another book that featured the entire run from 1905-1914. This book being reviewed was Volume One but the others came out in five volumes after that.
After all of that - I cannot give this any less than 5 stars. I will probably search the Goodreads book lists for the other editions and give them 5 stars too.
There have been few artists like WInsor McCay. This is the man who invented the animated film. Yes he did, with "Gertie the Dinosaur" in 1914. He drew thousands of individual drawings and took photos of each and then turned it into a moving picture. But his skills were such that he could do that!
Others have noted that McCay influenced a lot of modern artists including Maurice Sendak, Hal Foster, and Bill Watterson and many more that I am failing to mention. How about Jerry Scott (Zits)? At the very least, you should take a look at this book or any of the books in this series just to be amazed at the detail in the art.
May 12, 2025
(This review covers the complete strip)
A beautifully illustrated fantasy adventure about a young boy named Nemo as he explores elaborate, surreal dreamscapes. Each strip shows him moving through palaces, jungles, and other fantastical settings, only to wake up suddenly at the end. The stories are simple, but the detailed artwork, filled with moving floors, stretching staircases, and shifting scenery, makes every page feel alive. Though not driven by humour or deep character work, it remains one of the most visually inventive strips ever created, with an artistry and scope that are unmatched in early comics history.
A beautifully illustrated fantasy adventure about a young boy named Nemo as he explores elaborate, surreal dreamscapes. Each strip shows him moving through palaces, jungles, and other fantastical settings, only to wake up suddenly at the end. The stories are simple, but the detailed artwork, filled with moving floors, stretching staircases, and shifting scenery, makes every page feel alive. Though not driven by humour or deep character work, it remains one of the most visually inventive strips ever created, with an artistry and scope that are unmatched in early comics history.
July 24, 2017
This seminal work of comic art is fascinating to read. The early strips are actually kind of difficult to read because Winsor McCay was still figuring out what would work and what wouldn't on the page. Once captions and dialogue were sorted out the strips continued to be imaginative and entertaining. Like many comic strips Little Nemo in Slumberland is not really designed to be read in concentrated doses but the stories continue smoothly even with Nemo waking up at the bottom of each page. A whimsical comic strip from the earliest days of the medium.
December 8, 2021
These ancient comic strips are just gorgeous. They start out very text-heavy, and you can see Winsor McCay working to find the format as they go along, but by about the halfway mark, the narration falls away, the panels get bigger to showcase the incredibly detailed and infinitely imaginative art, and that's also when the narrative comes together to tell a charming, simple sort of weird fantasy fairy tale.
September 5, 2018
Looks really nice, but the way it is written makes it hard for me to enjoy it
Read
November 20, 2013I recently read comics of huge dimension, Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland by Winsor McCay, written back in the early part of last century, when Gibsons, big-brimed hats and a "new, columnar silhouette" defined women's fashion. Nemo is a young boy who when asleep travels to Slumberland, and begins to have adventures with the Princess of Slumberland, Camille. They pick up Flip as a traveling companion after having some altercations with him, which I did not read about, but were briefly mentioned. Flip in turn picks up a young black boy who is member of a tribe, and is known as The Imp.
I didn't start at the beginning, though. Apparently I lack a lot of contemporary historical knowledge, as the stories get really absurd at one point, and as much as I loved Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot in 2009, I'm still not ready for a re-read of that!
That aside, the illustrations are the real reason I looked into these comics in the first place. The perspective and is incredible, and the detail in every single page are really worth peeking at in a quick Google search, if nothing more.
Nemo's traveling companions are like-wise caricatures of their time. Princess Camille, incredibly passive yet wise, left after a while and Flip, green in the face from too many cigars, one supposes, took the comics from a serialized story format and into that which resembles the modern Sunday comics of today.
One is always amazed at the treatment of dark skinned characters in older works; while there is some attempted cannibalism when they go ashore in the pseudo-Pacific, the chief of the tribe speaks impeccable English. A member of the tribe accompanies them as Flip's ... property... for a while, then when Flip is separated from this caricature, Nemo travels with him, and finds him creating trouble slightly less often than he is helpful. He and the Imp, never mind the language barrier, are pretty evenly matched.
The illustrations are the real reason I looked into these comics in the first place. The perspective and is incredible, and the detail in every single page are really worth peeking at in a quick Google search, if nothing more.
Originally serialized in New York Herald from 1905-1911, but then switched to the New York American newspaper, where it was re-titled: In the Land of Wonderful Dreams; it ran there until 1914.
Cross posted to my blog, auroralector.blogspot.com.
I didn't start at the beginning, though. Apparently I lack a lot of contemporary historical knowledge, as the stories get really absurd at one point, and as much as I loved Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot in 2009, I'm still not ready for a re-read of that!
That aside, the illustrations are the real reason I looked into these comics in the first place. The perspective and is incredible, and the detail in every single page are really worth peeking at in a quick Google search, if nothing more.
Nemo's traveling companions are like-wise caricatures of their time. Princess Camille, incredibly passive yet wise, left after a while and Flip, green in the face from too many cigars, one supposes, took the comics from a serialized story format and into that which resembles the modern Sunday comics of today.
One is always amazed at the treatment of dark skinned characters in older works; while there is some attempted cannibalism when they go ashore in the pseudo-Pacific, the chief of the tribe speaks impeccable English. A member of the tribe accompanies them as Flip's ... property... for a while, then when Flip is separated from this caricature, Nemo travels with him, and finds him creating trouble slightly less often than he is helpful. He and the Imp, never mind the language barrier, are pretty evenly matched.
The illustrations are the real reason I looked into these comics in the first place. The perspective and is incredible, and the detail in every single page are really worth peeking at in a quick Google search, if nothing more.
Originally serialized in New York Herald from 1905-1911, but then switched to the New York American newspaper, where it was re-titled: In the Land of Wonderful Dreams; it ran there until 1914.
Cross posted to my blog, auroralector.blogspot.com.
July 3, 2007
I had a book with some of these - spanning the end of this volume and the beginning of vol. 2 - as a kid and I loved it. I was completely entranced with the beauty of McKay's incredible artwork as well as the imaginative strangeness of Slumberland. Like Tintin and so many other works from the past, it has parts that are offensively racist. If you are able to bracket those as symptoms of an earlier era, there is much to delight here.
September 5, 2011
the greatgrandaddy of fantastic sequential art! these are amazing and very worth the search to read!
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews