Little Nemo is a comic strip character created by Winsor McCay in the early 1900s for a series of newspaper comics. Little Nemo took readers on a strange and fantastical dream world in all of his appearances, which was so striking and surreal that Little Nemo strips were still being collected in books and reprinted a century later. Little Nemo is now in the public domain, making it very easy to find examples of McCay’s stories and get a taste of Little Nemo’s strange world.
Nemo, of course, is Latin for “Nobody,” and the character was primarily used to depict strange dream worlds. Before being awoken, Little Nemo has a series of increasingly strange and vivid dreams; traditionally, an adult is shown scolding Little Nemo for waking the house in the last scene of each strip. Little Nemo meets a variety of wild and vivid characters and embarks on a variety of adventures in his dreams, bridging the gap between the real world and the dream world as he flies to the moon, rescues a princess, and has adventures up and down the hill.
The first Little Nemo strip debuted in the New York Herald in 1905, with a straightforward plot: Little Nemo was attempting to enter the world of Slumberland in order to save a princess. However, he was repeatedly thwarted by evil characters, and the princess was not rescued until 1906, when the two embarked on a series of adventures in Slumberland, where they met heroes such as Morpheus and Santa Claus.
McCay was eventually wooed by the New York American, and Little Nemo followed him. The plot of the story was sometimes completely lost, with the focus of the strips shifting to the lush visual scenes rather than any specific story. Little Nemo proved to be a popular character, with stage and film adaptations as well as books, clothing, and other Little Nemo-themed merchandise available. Little Nemo was retired from comics in 1913, only to reap reappearance in the 1920s.
Little Nemo has left an indelible cultural imprint. The distinctive and haunting artwork that accompanied the Little Nemo strips, as well as the character himself, inspired many future comic artists. The combination of fantasy, surreal landscapes, and heroic characters proved to be a popular theme, and artists are still returning to it today.