It took months and months for the young boy to reach the kingdom of Slumberland, as each week he tried to reach his destination, exploring the world of dreams and living wondrous adventures, only to be awakened and brought back to reality. He ends up falling into his dream and returns to reality by falling out of his bed. The child follows the strange messenger into a world that loses all rationality. The readers will learn a little bit later that he wants Nemo to be the playmate of his daughter, the Princess of Slumberland. They meet a six-year-old boy named Little Nemo, immersed in his dreams when an emissary of King Morpheus tells him that the monarch requires his presence. This is in the Sunday edition of the New York Herald published on October 15, 1905, that readers were introduced to the fantasy adventure that was Little Nemo in Slumberland. Little Nemo – 5, the first Little Nemo comic strip The origins of Little Nemo in Slumberland
Whereas Rarebit Fiend targeted an adult public, telling a complete story on the page, only connected by the concept of nightmares brought by indigestion, Little Nemo was the children’s version, exploring the fantastical kingdom of dreams and featuring recurring characters (also with a lot of food before bedtime!) McCay’s first comic didn’t work but he found success quickly enough, with Little Sammy Sneeze, before creating his two most celebrated comic strips less than a year apart, Dream of the Rarebit Fiend and Little Nemo in Slumberland.īoth of them were about nocturnal adventures. Newspapers comics were also the main attractions for publishers like James Gordon Bennett or his today most famous concurrent William Randolph Hearst at the New York Journal. McCay was dreaming of having his own comic strip, a form of art that was in its earliest stage of development and, in consequence, where everything was possible. But it was in Telegram that he began experimenting with the comic strip form: a sequential panel called “Hubby Goes Shopping with the Usual Results” was published on December 24, 1903. He came to work for publisher James Gordon Bennett in 1903 where he was doing caricatures of officeholders. Considered a masterpiece, it shows the young Nemo atop his bed which had grown crazy long legs, and was walking among buildings.Īt this stage, creator Winsor McCay was working for the New York Herald for a few years and had already produced many illustrations and comic strips. One of the most famous Little Nemo in Slumberland comic strips today was published in July 1908.
Little Nemo in Slumberland, New York Herald, January 7, 1906
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