Little Nemo by Winsor McCay for October 28, 2014

These are similar in concept to McCay’s “The Dream of the Rarebit Fiend,” at least, the last panel is.

I’m loving these Nemo strips…

Cause I’m hung up on dreams I’ll never see and pie.

He’s getting a bit closer every night.

In the early run of this strip by McCay it was printed as a full page. Oh how I wish comic strips were still respected and given more space … printed larger … in today’s newspapers.

I can’t get over how old these are. People who fought the Civil War may have read these strips!

I spent a couple weekends this September wearing actual steel plate armor (and not even a full suit—just a gorget, pauldrons, leather bracers, greaves, and a helm), so I sympathize.

Yes, “Little Nemo” is one of the great ones.

There is so much detail. I wonder how long it took to create each episode?

McCay was a sort of prodigy. As near as I can tell from seeing some originals on exhibit, he just drew these onto the page in ink. There was no sign of pencils under the ink, and no use of white paint for corrections, except on one page where he must have spilled the ink pot. (Animator Robert McKimson had a similar gift, and was described by onlookers as seeming to ink a pencil drawing nobody else could see.)

He was at work once, and the editor was wishing for a picture of a new fire engine. McCay simply sat down and drew it, having walked past it on the way to work.

Even if they printed comics full page now, they’d still be way smaller than this. Just in the time I was creating ads for newspapers, they shrunk their size a time or two, so they could use less paper as well as charge the same for smaller size ads.

Ah, now we meet Grandmother. Nice that the old folks take turns in rescuing Little Nemo from his dream falls:)