The Best of Little Nemo in Slumber Land [Hardcover]

Winsor McCay (Author), Richard Marschall (Author, Editor)

Book Description

Considered by many critics and artists to be the greatest comic strip of all time, Little Nemo in Slumbe rland was cherished in its day and honoured through the year s. This selection includes reproductions of more than 150 of McCay''s finest strips. '

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

As Richard Marschall states in his introduction to this well-presented art book, "It might be a stretch to describe McCay as a Surrealist, but he clearly presaged the movement that portrayed fevered thoughts via photographic depictions." This is no surprise to the legions of Winsor McCay's existing admirers. What makes The Best of Little Nemo in Slumberland a real joy are the more than 200 pages of full-color, large-sized reproductions of many of McCay's best pieces. The collection surrounds the reader with Little Nemo's Edenic images of a fantasy paradise. In addition to Marschall's introduction, there are appreciation essays by Maurice Sendak, Ron Goulart, Art Spiegelman, Charles Schulz, Chuck Jones, and Bill Watterson.

Review

The possessor of a wild and seemingly limitless visual imagination, McCay luckily had the graphic virtuosity to bring his slumberland fantasies to life before the viewer's bedazzled eyes.... With such unremitting graphic high jinks to beguile us, plot, dialogue and characterization are almost beside the point. McCay's protagonists are little more than cardboard foils for the artist's incredible flights of fancy. -- The Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review, Selma G. Lanes

Product Details

• Hardcover: 216 pages
• Publisher: Stewart Tabori & Chang; First edition (September 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556706472
• ISBN-13: 978-1556706479
• Product Dimensions: 13.3 x 10.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,847,389 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars McCay was decades ahead of his time, January 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Best of Little Nemo in Slumber Land (Hardcover)

Anyone who's read a history of comic books, comic strips, and other sequential art has heard of Little Nemo, but few have seen it in detail. This is a beautiful collection of Little Nemo strips that demonstrate author Winsor McCay's use of plot, characters, and sequential art in ways that decades later others would be heralded for "pioneering". The strips are beautiful, elegant, witty, and fascinating. A must for any fan of sequential art.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars McCay is Magnificent, September 5, 1998

By 

Jim T - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Best of Little Nemo in Slumber Land (Hardcover)

If one cannot purchase the 6 vol set of the *complete* Little Nemo, this will have to do. (sigh) Any collection of McCay is worth having. All one can do is *cry* over the lack of skill when comparing this with modern strips. It is not impossible to have good story line AND good draftsmanship. Buy it, you will not be dissapointed!

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is a must have for all cartoonists!!!!!, February 1, 1999

By 

Jeff Kilpatrick (Founder, the Philadelphia Ca... (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Best of Little Nemo in Slumber Land (Hardcover)

This book is an absolute treasure. Every cartoonist should buy and study this book with a magnifying glass for a few hours a week. Winsor McCay is maybe the most dedicated, hard-working cartoonist to date. He was certainly before his time, and he has still carries more weight than most artists of today. His strips are lavish and generous. You can believe that I will be studying this book for years to come.