Topic 5 Week 2: Comics and Graphic Novels - 6th May

Winsor McCay was an American animator and cartoonist. McCay created popular comic strips including Little Nemo, Little Sammy Sneeze and Dream of the Rarebit Fiend. He also produced a number of animated films. Between 1903 and 1911 McCay produced many comic strips for many companies.

I found Winsor McCay's journey into making comic strips professionally quite interesting for the simple fact that he had so many obstacles throughout his life with people trying to hold him back and keep him in one place. I admire his perseverance to draw as much as he could. To begin with, McCay harnessed his quick drawing skills and great attention to detail to draw portraits as an attraction at an amusement park. This was his first step into the art world, even though his parents didn't approve of this as a career path. What followed was a series of jobs as a printer, then an artist, followed by a sign painter and eventually he landed himself a job making drawings for a local paper and also submitting drawings to other magazines. This is where McCay developed his skills in using a pen to create his drawings.

Winsor McCay became one of the first cartoonists to master the use of cinematic features in his drawings. This included things like cinemascope, tracking, panning, pacing, motion and even special effects.
In 1903 he accepted his job at the New York Herald creating comic strips.

Little Nemo in Slumberland (1905-1911), was a real hit from McCay which eventually made its way to broadway. Little Nemo was a little boy who had amazing dreams which were the theme for the weekly strip. It sounds like it would have been quite a cute comic strip, with the stories initially being about Little Nemo's adventures to King Morpheus' realm, "Slumberland" to meet playmate Princess Camille. However, his journey was often dark, surreal and violent and the comic strip often ended with Nemo waking up in his bedroom having suffered from a disaster or even death within his dream. The story eventually branched out to other imaginary lands as well.
I found it funny in a way to discover that Nemo, in Latin, actually means nobody. It makes for an interesting translation when you substitute it in... Little Nobody in Slumberland.. or even into the pixar film 'Finding Nemo' - Finding Nobody?

The stories of Little Nemo remind me of "Max and Moritz" a German stories about two mischievous children who always ended up in a bad way. My grandma used to read them to us (translating them to english) when I was little. They were funny but I don't think we truly understood the stories and black humour. I think this is why I took such interest in Little Nemo. Within my research I found that Max and Moritz may have influenced some German comic strips Katzenjammer Kids and Quick & Flupke. I've attached the below image to show one of the situations that the twins get themselves into. Unfortunately I couldn't put the whole story in because they are not in the comic strip format and therefore take up a few pages. Basically though after playing many tricks, the twins are caught, thrown in the mill and eaten by ducks. The twins constantly meet a terrible fate in their stories after being menaces to the other townfolk.