Little Nemo
Encyclopedia
Little Nemo is the main fictional character
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...

 in a series of weekly comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

s by Winsor McCay
Winsor McCay
Winsor McCay was an American cartoonist and animator.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...

 that appeared in the New York Herald
New York Herald
The New York Herald was a large distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between May 6, 1835, and 1924.-History:The first issue of the paper was published by James Gordon Bennett, Sr., on May 6, 1835. By 1845 it was the most popular and profitable daily newspaper in the UnitedStates...

and William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...

'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
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

; it was often dark, surreal
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....

, threatening, and even violent. The strip related the dreams of a little boy: Nemo (meaning "nobody" in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

), 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 mushroom
Mushroom
A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source. The standard for the name "mushroom" is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus; hence the word "mushroom" is most often applied to those fungi that...

s, being turned into a monkey
Monkey
A monkey is a primate, either an Old World monkey or a New World monkey. There are about 260 known living species of monkey. Many are arboreal, although there are species that live primarily on the ground, such as baboons. Monkeys are generally considered to be intelligent. Unlike apes, monkeys...

, falling from a bridge being held up by "slaves
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

", or gaining 90 years in age
Senescence
Senescence or biological aging is the change in the biology of an organism as it ages after its maturity. Such changes range from those affecting its cells and their function to those affecting the whole organism...

. The adventures leading to these disasters all had a common purpose: to get to Slumberland
Slumberland
Slumberland Furniture, Inc. is a furniture retailer in the Midwestern United States, founded in 1967. Originally the company specialized in mattresses and La-Z-Boy recliners. Today Slumberland has 114 stores in 10 states. It is America's top seller of La-Z-Boy upholstery and the top seller of...

, 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
Flip (Little Nemo)
Flip is a character in the comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland. He is the son of the Sun and nephew of the Dawn, something of a ne'er-do-well, and more or less an outcast: the residents of Slumberland want nothing to do with him. In his earliest appearances, he spends his time in Slumberland...

, 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 hero
Hero
A hero , in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion...

es. The others included: Dr. Pill, The Imp, the Candy Kid and Santa Claus
Santa Claus
Santa Claus is a folklore figure in various cultures who distributes gifts to children, normally on Christmas Eve. Each name is a variation of Saint Nicholas, but refers to 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
Katzenjammer Kids
The Katzenjammer Kids is an American comic strip created by the German immigrant Rudolph Dirks and drawn by Harold H. Knerr for 37 years...

, Happy Hooligan
Happy Hooligan
Happy Hooligan was a popular and influential early American comic strip by Frederick Burr Opper.Happy Hooligan, the first major comic strip by already celebrated cartoonist Opper, debuted with a Sunday strip on March 11, 1900 in the William Randolph Hearst newspapers, and was one of the first...

, and Buster Brown
Buster Brown
Buster Brown was a comic strip character created in 1902 by Richard Felton Outcault who was known for his association with the Brown Shoe Company. This mischievous young boy was loosely based on a boy near Outcault's home in Flushing, New York...

to the surreal fantasy of Nemo, and other comic strips like Krazy Kat
Krazy Kat
Krazy Kat is an American comic strip created by cartoonist George Herriman, published daily in newspapers between 1913 and 1944. It first appeared in the New York Evening Journal, whose owner, William Randolph Hearst, was a major booster for the strip throughout its run...

. However, during the late 20th century and early 21st century, the strip received more recognition. Woody Gelman
Woody Gelman
Woodrow Gelman , better known as Woody Gelman, was a publisher, a cartoonist, a novelist and an artist-writer for animation and comic books. As the publisher of Nostalgia Press, he pioneered the reprinting of vintage comic strips in quality hardcovers and trade paperbacks...

 discovered many of the original strips at a cartoon studio where McCay's son worked in 1966. Many of the original drawings that Gelman recovered were displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...

 under the direction of curator A. Hyatt Mayor
A. Hyatt Mayor
A. Hyatt Mayor was an American art historian and curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a leading figure in the study of prints, both old master prints and popular prints....

. 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
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...

) 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
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...

 in most of the world on January 1, 2005, 70 years after McCay's death (see Copyright
Copyright term
Copyright term is the length of time copyright subsists in a work before it passes into the public domain.- Length of copyright:Copyright subsists for a variety of lengths in different jurisdictions. The length of the term can depend on several factors, including the type of work Copyright term is...

 and the EU's Directive harmonizing the term of copyright protection
Directive harmonizing the term of copyright protection
Council Directive 93/98/EEC of 29 October 1993 harmonising the term of protection of copyright and certain related rights is a European Union directive in the field of copyright law, made under the internal market provisions of the Treaty of Rome...

 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.

Adaptations


Theater

An 'operatic spectacle' was based on the strip, with music by Victor Herbert
Victor Herbert
Victor August Herbert was an Irish-born, German-raised American composer, cellist and conductor. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is best known for composing many successful operettas that premiered on Broadway from the 1890s to World War I...

 (composer of Babes in Toyland
Babes in Toyland (operetta)
Babes in Toyland is an operetta composed by Victor Herbert with a libretto by Glen MacDonough , which wove together various characters from Mother Goose nursery rhymes into a Christmas-themed musical extravaganza. The creators wanted to cash in on the extraordinary success of The Wizard of Oz,...

) and lyrics by Harry B. Smith
Harry B. Smith
Harry Bache Smith was a writer, lyricist and composer. The most prolific of all American stage writers, he is said to have written over 300 librettos and more than 6000 lyrics. Some of his best-known works were librettos for the composer Victor Herbert...

. 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
The Whiffenpoofs
The Yale Whiffenpoofs are the oldest collegiate a cappella group in the United States, established in 1909. Best known for "The Whiffenpoof Song", based on a tune written by Tod Galloway and adapted with lyrics by Meade Minnigerode & George S Pomeroy , the group comprises college...

.

In spring 2007, an operatic adaptation of the comic strip was announced to be presented in spring 2009 by the Sarasota Opera
Sarasota Opera
Sarasota Opera is a professional opera company in Sarasota, Florida, USA, which owns and performs in the now-renovated 1,119-seat Sarasota Opera House. The 2011-2012 season is currently featuring Puccini’s Madama Butterfly in the fall...

, composed by the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

-winning composer Ned Rorem
Ned Rorem
Ned Rorem is a Pulitzer prize-winning American composer and diarist. He is best known and most praised for his song settings.-Life:...

. 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
Daron Hagen
Daron Aric Hagen , is an American composer, conductor, pianist, educator, librettist, and stage director of contemporary classical music and opera.- Early life and education :...

 and librettist Sandy McClatchy
J.D. McClatchy
J. D. "Sandy" McClatchy is an American poet and literary critic. He is editor of the Yale Review and president of The American Academy of Arts and Letters.-Life:...

 would create the work instead, for May 2012 premiere.

Films

James Stuart Blackton
J. Stuart Blackton
James Stuart Blackton , usually known as J. Stuart Blackton, was an Anglo-American film producer of the Silent Era, the founder of Vitagraph Studios and among the first filmmakers to use the techniques of stop-motion and drawn animation...

 and Winsor McCay directed a ten-minute short film based on the comic strip, of which two minutes were animated
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...

. 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
National Film Registry
The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...

 in December 2009.

In 1984, Arnaud Sélignac produced and directed a film called Nemo or Dream One starring Jason Connery
Jason Connery
Jason Joseph Connery is an English actor.-Early life:Connery grew up in London. He attended Millfield School, a co-educational independent school in Somerset, England, and later at the independent Gordonstoun School in Scotland. He was later accepted into the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School...

, Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel is an American actor. Some of his most notable starring roles were in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, Ridley Scott's The Duellists and Thelma and Louise, Ettore Scola's That Night in Varennes, Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, Jane Campion's The...

 and Carole Bouquet
Carole Bouquet
Carole Bouquet is a French actress and fashion model, who has appeared in more than 40 films since 1977. Bouquet was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France....

. 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
Zorro
Zorro is a fictional character created in 1919 by New York-based pulp writer Johnston McCulley. The character has been featured in numerous books, films, television series, and other media....

, Alice
Alice (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)
Alice is a fictional character in the literary classic, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, And What Alice Found There. She is a young girl from Victorian-era Britain.-Development:...

, and Jules Verne
Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...

's Nautilus
Nautilus (Verne)
The Nautilus is the fictional submarine featured in Jules Verne's novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island . Verne named the Nautilus after Robert Fulton's real-life submarine Nautilus...

 (which was led by Captain Nemo
Captain Nemo
Captain Nemo, also known as Prince Dakkar, is a fictional character featured in Jules Verne's novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island ....

) (see IMDB entry).

An animated feature film entitled Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland
Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland
Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland, known in Japan as simply Nemo, is a 1989 animated film directed by Masami Hata and William T. Hurtz. Loosely based on the comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay, the film went through a lengthy development process with a number of screenwriters...

(known simply as "Nemo" in Japan) was finally released in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 in July 1989 and in the US in 1992. It was directed by Masami Hata and William T. Hurtz from a screenplay by Chris Columbus
Chris Columbus (filmmaker)
Christopher Joseph "Chris" Columbus is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Columbus had his largest success with the first two films in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, along with Home Alone, the last...

 and Richard Outten
Richard Outten
Richard Outten is an American screenwriter who works in both motion pictures and television. After receiving his MFA from the USC School of Cinematic Arts, he co-authored , the screenplay to the award-winning animated film Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland. Other motion picture credits...

. Originally conceived in 1982, this Japanese-American co-production had a long and tumultuous history which included a 1984 pilot by Ghibli
Studio Ghibli
is a Japanese animation and film studio founded in June 1985. The company's logo features the character Totoro from Hayao Miyazaki's film My Neighbor Totoro...

 director Yoshifumi Kondō
Yoshifumi Kondo
was a Japanese animator who worked for Studio Ghibli in his last years. He was born in Gosen, Niigata Prefecture, Japan. He worked as an animation director on Anne of Green Gables, Sherlock Hound, Kiki's Delivery Service, Only Yesterday and Princess Mononoke...

.http://ghiblicon.blogspot.com/2006/06/nemo-pilot-1984.html

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
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 in October 2004, and quickly went out of print the following year. The DVD was once again released in January 2009.

Other media

In 1990, Capcom
Capcom
is a Japanese developer and publisher of video games, known for creating multi-million-selling franchises such as Devil May Cry, Chaos Legion, Street Fighter, Mega Man and Resident Evil. Capcom developed and published Bionic Commando, Lost Planet and Dark Void too, but they are less known. Its...

 produced a video game for the NES
Nintendo Entertainment System
The Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987...

, titled Little Nemo: The Dream Master
Little Nemo: The Dream Master
Little Nemo: The Dream Master is a platform game released on the NES in 1990 by Capcom. It is based on the Japanese animated film, Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland from Tokyo Movie Shinsha, which itself is based on the comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay...

(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
Arcade game
An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, usually installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars, and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, and merchandisers...

 called simply Nemo was also released in 1990.

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
Blackthorne Publishing
Blackthorne Publishing, Inc. was a comic book publisher that flourished from 1986-1989. They were notable for the Blackthorne 3-D Series, their reprint titles of classic comic strips like Dick Tracy, and their licensed products...

 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
Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent American comic book and manga publisher.Dark Horse Comics was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon, with the concept of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals. Richardson started out by opening his first comic book...

 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
Phil Collins
Philip David Charles "Phil" Collins, LVO is an English singer-songwriter, drummer, pianist and actor best known as a drummer and vocalist for British progressive rock group Genesis and as a solo artist....

 and Tony Banks
Tony Banks (musician)
This article is about the musician. For other people named Tony Banks, see Tony BanksAnthony George "Tony" Banks is a British composer, and multi-instrumentalist, who performs as a keyboardist and a guitarist...

 of the progressive rock group Genesis
Genesis (band)
Genesis are an English rock band that formed in 1967. The band currently comprises the longest-tenured members Tony Banks , Mike Rutherford and Phil Collins . Past members Peter Gabriel , Steve Hackett and Anthony Phillips , also played major roles in the band in its early years...

 on their 1978 recording, ...And Then There Were Three...
...And Then There Were Three...
...And Then There Were Three... is the ninth studio album by the British band Genesis and was released in 1978. It is the band's first album as a trio.-Background and recording:...

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
Islands of Adventure
Universal's Islands of Adventure is a theme park located in Orlando, Florida. It opened May 28, 1999 as part of an expansion that, along with CityWalk Entertainment District, the Portofino Bay Hotel, and Hard Rock hotel, converted Universal Studios Florida into the Universal Orlando Resort...

, 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
Runnin' Down a Dream
"Runnin' Down a Dream" is the title of a song co-written and recorded by Tom Petty. It was released in July 1989 as the second single from his first solo album Full Moon Fever. "Runnin' Down a Dream" achieved reasonable chart success, reaching number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and the top of...

by Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers are an American rock band from Gainesville, Florida. They were formed in 1976 by Tom Petty , Mike Campbell , Benmont Tench , , Ron Blair and Stan Lynch...

.

Cultural influences

Since its publishing, Little Nemo has had an influence on other artists, including Alan Moore
Alan Moore
Alan Oswald Moore is an English writer primarily known for his work in comic books, a medium where he has produced a number of critically acclaimed and popular series, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell...

, in Miracleman #4, when the Miracleman
Miracleman
Marvelman, also known as Miracleman for trademark reasons in his American reprints and story continuation, is a fictional comic book superhero created in 1954 by writer-artist Mick Anglo for publisher L. Miller & Son. Originally intended as a United Kingdom home-grown substitute for the American...

 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
Promethea
Promethea is a comic book series created by Alan Moore, J. H. Williams III and Mick Gray, published by America's Best Comics/WildStorm....

, a more direct pastiche
Pastiche
A pastiche is a literary or other artistic genre or technique that is a "hodge-podge" or imitation. The word is also a linguistic term used to describe an early stage in the development of a pidgin language.-Hodge-podge:...

 - "Little Margie in Misty Magic Land" - showed Moore's inspiration and debt to McCay's landmark 1905 strip. The Sandman
Sandman (Vertigo)
The Sandman is a comic book series written by Neil Gaiman and published by DC Comics. Beginning with issue #47, it was placed under the imprint Vertigo. It chronicles the adventures of Dream , who rules over the world of dreams. It ran for 75 issues from January 1989 until March 1996...

 series occasionally references Little Nemo as well. Examples include The Sandman: The Doll's House
The Sandman: The Doll's House
The Doll's House is the second trade paperback collection of the comic book series The Sandman, published by DC Comics. It collects issues #9-16. It is written by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Mike Dringenberg, Malcolm Jones III, Chris Bachalo, Michael Zulli and Steve Parkhouse, coloured by Robbie...

, 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
The Sandman: Book of Dreams
The Sandman: Book of Dreams , edited by Ed Kramer and Neil Gaiman, is an anthology of short stories based on The Sandman comic book series.-Behind the scenes:...

(pub. 1996), which features George Alec Effinger
George Alec Effinger
George Alec Effinger was an American science fiction author, born in 1947 in Cleveland, Ohio.-Writing career:...

's short "Seven Nights in Slumberland" (where Nemo interacts with Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman
Neil Richard Gaiman born 10 November 1960)is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book...

's characters The Endless
Endless (comics)
The Endless are a group of beings who embody powerful forces or aspects of the universe in the DC comic book series The Sandman, by Neil Gaiman. They have existed since the dawn of time and are thought to be among the most powerful beings in the universe...

).

In children's literature, Maurice Sendak
Maurice Sendak
Maurice Bernard Sendak is an American writer and illustrator of children's literature. He is best known for his book Where the Wild Things Are, published in 1963.-Early life:...

 has said that this strip inspired his book In the Night Kitchen
In the Night Kitchen
In the Night Kitchen is a popular and controversial children's picture book, written and illustrated by Maurice Sendak, and first published in 1970. The book depicts a young boy's dream journey through a surreal baker's kitchen where he assists in the creation of a cake to be ready by the morning...

, and William Joyce
William Joyce (writer)
William Joyce is an American author, illustrator, and filmmaker. Newsweek has called him one of the top 100 people to watch in the new millennium. His illustrations have appeared on numerous New Yorker covers and his paintings are displayed at national museums and art galleries. He lives with his...

 included several elements from Little Nemo in his children's book Santa Calls, including appearances by Flip and the walking bed.

In 1984, Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 comic artist Vittorio Giardino
Vittorio Giardino
Vittorio Giardino is an Italian comic artist.Giardino was born in Bologna, where he graduated in electrical engineering in 1969.At the age of 30, he decided to leave his job and devote himself to comics...

 started producing a number of few-page stories under the title Little Ego
Little Ego
Little Ego is a comic strip written and drawn by Vittorio Giardino, as well as the title character of the strip. Little Ego first appeared in Glamour International Magazine #12 .-Publication history:...

, a parodic
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

 adaptation of Little Nemo, in the shape of erotic
Eroticism
Eroticism is generally understood to refer to a state of sexual arousal or anticipation of such – an insistent sexual impulse, desire, or pattern of thoughts, as well as a philosophical contemplation concerning the aesthetics of sexual desire, sensuality and romantic love...

 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
Cul de Sac (comic strip)
Cul de Sac is a comic strip created by Richard Thompson and distributed by Universal Press Syndicate to 150 worldwide newspapers.The central character is four-year-old Alice Otterloop, and the strip depicts her daily life at pre-school and at home...

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

In 2006, electronic artist Daedelus
Daedelus (musician)
Alfred Darlington is a music producer based in Los Angeles, California. Daedelus pioneered using the Monome in conjunction with Max/MSP for live performances. He is a part of the groups Adventure Time and The Long Lost...

 used Little Nemo artwork for his album Denies the Day's Demise
Denies the Day's Demise
Denies the Day's Demise is an album by Daedelus released in 2006.Reviewer Tim Sendra of allmusic, in a four and a half star review, praises the record's "inventive samples drawn from unique and obscure sources" and "seriously good songcraft."...

.

In 2007, during the second episode of the fourth season of The L Word
The L Word
The L Word is an American co-production television drama series originally shown on Showtime portraying the lives of a group of lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people and their friends, family and lovers in the trendy Greater Los Angeles, California city of West Hollywood...

, Little Nemo in Slumberland is referenced during a brief conversation between Bette Porter
Bette Porter
Bette Porter is a fictional character on the Showtime television network series The L Word, played by Jennifer Beals. While she is portrayed as the one true love of Tina Kennard, she is a successful career woman who often struggles with commitment in her intimate relationships, often sabotaging...

 and prospective TA Nadia.

Collections

  • Little Nemo 1905-1906 Nostalgia Press
    Woody Gelman
    Woodrow Gelman , better known as Woody Gelman, was a publisher, a cartoonist, a novelist and an artist-writer for animation and comic books. As the publisher of Nostalgia Press, he pioneered the reprinting of vintage comic strips in quality hardcovers and trade paperbacks...

  • 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
    Blackthorne Publishing
    Blackthorne Publishing, Inc. was a comic book publisher that flourished from 1986-1989. They were notable for the Blackthorne 3-D Series, their reprint titles of classic comic strips like Dick Tracy, and their licensed products...

    , 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
    Checker Book Publishing Group
    Checker Book Publishing Group is an independent publisher of comics reprints, from newspaper strips to modern out-of-print titles and collections from defunct publishers.-History:...

     ISBN 1-933160-21-7
  • Little Nemo in Slumberland, v2 (1910-1926) Checker Books
    Checker Book Publishing Group
    Checker Book Publishing Group is an independent publisher of comics reprints, from newspaper strips to modern out-of-print titles and collections from defunct publishers.-History:...

     ISBN 1-933160-22-5

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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