There's a wonderful
article in the New York Times today about Peter Maresca, who'se released a self-published book of
Little Nemo in Slumberland reprints. For those not in the know, Nemo is the comic genre's seminal work; a comic that sprung forth from the mind of Winsor McCay like Athena from Zeus. Nemo is a cipher as much as he's a little boy and as he travels through collapsing mushroom fields, forests whose tree trunks turn out to be stork legs and is accompanied / thwarted by a green face cigar-smoking clown named Flip, the strip captures both the wide-eyed wonder of childhood and the terror of modern life.
The images are stunning. Bill Waterson, Art Spiegelman and Chris Ware all credit McCay with influencing both their art and their storytelling. Expect to hear and see more of Nemo- he recently fell into public domain allowing a new generation (Me!) to mold new tales and bizarre dreams from a century-young archetype.
Check out
Maresca's site to purchase the book. Also, in November,
MOCA will feature original Nemo artwork as part of its "Masters of American Comics" exhibition.
