To be the first human being to see a real live dinosaur would be a marvelous thing. Audiences all over America had that very experience thanks to Winsor McCay. Gertie the dinosaur emerged from McCay’s pen onto 10,000 separate drawings which he combined into the first truly successful animation. He toured through vaudeville, entertaining audiences with his miraculous trained pet. Fortunately, film was made of his performance and is available on DVD (Winsor McCay: The Master Edition and Animation Legend: Winsor McCay).

But let us not praise famous dinosaurs, let us instead commemorate the centennial of McCay’s other magnificent creation, Little Nemo in Slumberland. In 1905, Nemo debuted in the New York Herald as a full-page funny. McCay had worked his way through dime museums and small city advertising gigs to reach his position as staff artist at a major paper.

Responding to the incredible popularity of comic strips, McCay made four attempts (Mr. Goodenough, Sister’s Little Sister’s Beau, The Phurious Phinish of Phoolish Philipe Phunny Phrolics, and Little Sammy Sneeze) before Nemo became a cultural icon. In 1908, Little Nemo even provided the basis for a hit musical comedy in New York — music by Victor Herbert, just off his gig as conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony.

Reading Little Nemo in Slumberland today is a lot like watching 1930s animation. Unavoidably, you are seeing something that was hand-drawn. Details are present and unusual choices are made. Nemo’s regular adventures through his dreams presage nothing so much as ’60s alternative comics by way of the Art Deco movement. To venerate the occasion, Little Nemo in Slumberland — So Many Splendid Sundays has just been issued at $120, but there is an accompanying, less expensive 15-month calendar for the new explorer.

December, 2005

We here in the Family Valued emerald room, journalist freak show, and jelly bean cafeteria have randomly selected an eleven-year-old from among the one immediately available.

Tell me about Abadazad.

Abadazad is about this teenage girl, Kate, who gets transported into this fictional world and she has to find her brother Matty who disappeared. It’s bit book and a bit comic book. I actually like the comic book more.

Fictional world?

Somebody actually wrote books about the world of fantasy that she’s in. It’s called Abadazad. All of the books were by Franklin O. Davies. He isn’t a real person. It’s more like a fantasy world because it has stuff that wouldn’t really exist, like it has these giant fish. I’m talking bigger than the biggest tuna. I liked the frog. I really like fishes and he’s a fish person. He’s this guy who lives underwater and he’s a kind of fish-looking thing. And he lives in the stomach of this humongous fish. He has these snakes which can teleport you around. He has these bubbles which can tell you the future and the past.

So you’re saying it’s a book about a girl getting lost in the books that she’s reading? Doesn’t that get confusing?

That she has read to her little brother. Sometimes, yes. The world she is in is actually by a person which just doesn’t make sense. Kate lives in Brooklyn, New York, sometime pretty modern. Abadazad is somewhere, sometime.

You’ve read a lot of stuff by J.M. DeMatteis?

Because he’s a very good writer. He wrote good comics, too: a lot of Justice League comic books.

Would you recommend these books?

Yes, I would to people who like comic books and fantasy.

March, 2007