~ Little Nemo~ Week 3

This week we were looking at many different types of comics that came out in the early stages of comic history, around 1900s. Some of the titles were Krazy Kat, Prince Valiant and many others. I felt bad looking at the older comics because I have not heard most of the titles that were shown in class or if I did it was long forgotten. There was one title that I knew because I took a class about history of Illustration, which we talked about and had to know Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo.

This comic is about the adventures of a little boy in his dreams. Little Nemo is a fictional character created by Winsor McCay. Nemo is the main character of the comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland. The weekly strip depicted Nemo having fantastic dreams that were interrupted by his awakening in the final panel. The odd dreams are triggered by something odd that Nemo has eaten before he has gone to bed.

I found that McCay pushed out side the box with this strip. It is set up like no other in this time period and can be seen as a based for now a day comics. I felt like he really experimented with the form of the layout of the strips page, color, timing, pacing, size, shape, perspective, architectural and other details of each panels.

For an example in the image on the right shows part of the Slumberland strip. Also shows how McCay pushed himself. For the layout of the strips page it is clean cut and simple for and easy read.  The coloring for each panels helps with the line art to make a real interesting image and makes it simple to the viewer to understand. For an example the turkey eating the house in the middle shows a great use of color and where to put it. All the colors are in the turkey are richer and flashy.  He used more simple and neutral colors in the background to help make the turkey pop. The timing and pacing is well used with having quicker parts, like the turkey eating the house, to slower parts, like Nemo falling in to red water and swimming to shore. With this strip McCay used three different size panels. I think the reason for this is to help show the reader what are the more important parts of the strip. McCay for this strip did not stick with just boxes. As you can see he played with different shapes, like circle and sloping panels. He is the master of having fun ways to use perspective and architectural that is simple and yet you can easily tell what is going on.

I find Little Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay a classic comics strip and you need to know if you want to do comics. It may be old school, but it is great just the same.