Little Nemo In Slumberland HC Volume 1 Limited Edition [Deluxe Edition] [Hardcover]

Winsor McCay (Author, Artist)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 4, 2007

Included here is every known episode from October 13th, 1905, the very frist, until August 15, 1909, never before published in complete collected form. in addition, another first: All forty-three episodes of McCay's first color Sunday feature, Tales of the Jungle Imps, As published in the Cincinnati Enquirer in 1903. Bonus promotional material includes playbills, posters, Little Nemo merchandise and more.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Conceptually rich, gorgeously executed, Little Nemo was the first artistic triumph of the newspaper comic strip. Its very first weekly installment, in 1905, set its modus operandi. The child hero dreams fantastic adventures, only to abruptly awaken in the last panel. Within each installment, McCay displayed his daunting graphic skills and vast imagination. It took decades for other comics artists to approach Nemo's visual élan and formal brilliance, and in many ways the strip remains unmatched to this day. Tales of the Jungle Imps, an earlier McCay feature that ran nearly a year in 1903, rounds out this volume; it is notable largely for demonstrating the development of McCay's style but also, unfortunately, for its racially stereotypical depiction of African "natives," which also mars Nemo, though to a lesser extent. These strips have been reprinted by various publishers over the years, but this volume and its forthcoming companion, which collect Nemo's entire eight-year run, represent an affordable opportunity for libraries to own an indispensable landmark of comics history complete. Flagg, Gordon
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

Readers for whom this very highly recommended collection will be their first exposure to McCay's legendary newspaper comic strip, will also be interested in reading the Daily strips collected in the Checker series Winsor McCay: The Early Works (along with other material from the period). James Cox --Midwest Book Review

Included in this collection are over 180 strips by Winsor that exhibit and provoke thought and imagination in readers. Lance Eaton --Bookloons

Looking at Nemo, I see a similarity to Maurice Sendak's delightful illustrations. There is a sense of wonder and the fantastic that echoes early animated cartoons. McCay's work is far more complex and crowded than Sendak's but both have a cinematic feel in their use of varying views and perspective. Sara Pearce --Cincinnati Enquirer

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Checker Book Publishing Group; Limited edition (July 4, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933160217
• ISBN-13: 978-1933160214
• Product Dimensions: 12.6 x 9.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #904,289 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Throughout the 20th century, newspaper comic strips have been a staple of American popular culture., April 3, 2008

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Little Nemo In Slumberland HC Volume 1 Limited Edition (Hardcover)

Throughout the 20th century, newspaper comic strips have been a staple of American popular culture. Winsor McCay's "Little Nemo In Slumberland" was a color comic strip that debuted in the New York 'Hearld' on October 15, 1905 and achieved an immense popularity almost overnight. It continued to be published until December 1913, when McCay was pressed by his editor to suspend the series in order to concentrate on editorial cartooning. In August 1924 McCay revived the comic strip and it ran for an additional three years. Now the Checker Book Publishing Group has brought out a photomechanical reprint in full color of all of the strips from the first episode in 1905 though August 15, 1909. Also included in this impressive first volume are forty-three strips comprising 'Tales of the Jungle Imps', as well as samples of original promotional material, play bills, posters, early Nemo merchandising, and more. Of immense nostalagic interest and a superb example of early American newspaper cartoon strips, "Winsor McCay's Little Nemo In Slumberland; Volume One" is also highly recommended because it makes available to a whole new generation of readers the wonderful adventures of Nemo, Flip, The Princess, and a cast of memorable characters.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Comparison with the six volume Fantagraphics, Evergreen single volume and Checker volume two., March 31, 2011

By 

Jon (NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Little Nemo In Slumberland HC Volume 1 Limited Edition (Hardcover)

I've had the pleasure of owning the Fantagraphics Books six volume set (since lost to a house fire), the Evergreen/Taschen "complete" volume and now the Checker volume two since learning that it contains the Nemo strips from the 1920s.

I believe I am correct when I say that the Evergreen/Taschen single volume contains the same content as the early six volume set. These are missing the 1920's strips. However, contrary to Checker's claims (and they could have easily 'checked'), the Checker volume two is missing several strips.

By Evergreen page number and newspaper publication date they are:
pg.259 7-31-10
pg.350 6-23-12
pg.351 6-30-12
pg.352 7-07-12
pg.353 7-14-12
pg.407 8-31-13

In addition, if the original publication dates noted by Evergreen are correct, two sets of reversed order pages in the Checker volume these are pgs.164 and 165, and 284 and 285. The Evergreen volume has these swapped correctly with dates.

Despite the absence of these six pages, the Checker book is very nice and contains no less than 127 (!) extra pages never before reprinted from the 1920s and that is reason enough to buy this volume at the excellent value it is. The content of these 127 pages is top notch - excellent and imaginative art.

The printing quality is only marginally less than the Evergreen volume - certain black outlines of borders and such are slightly blurred. This difference is fractional and will hardly be noticed. The color itself is not so much better or worse as it is different. Some pages are better than Evergreen, but others look a little "hot" and this will offend those readers accustomed to a more flat, 'antique', gentle and pastel-like look from the earlier collections.

For the sake of future fans I hope Checker will consider a reprint of volume one and an update of volume two so we may finally have a nearly complete collection of Little Nemo strips. The six strip ommision in their current volume two was completely unnecessary and truly regrettable.

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I have now gone through and compared this Checker Nemo v.1 with the Evergreen collection. Though a few strips are misplaced in the Checker volume, it is as complete as the earlier release by Evergreen.

My only disappointments with this Checker volume one in comparison with earlier efforts at reprinting the series is that the colors, especially in volume one, are so saturated and "hot" that they look ugly and frequently muddy, and there is an everpresent yellow haze over almost every page - noticeable in the Evergreen volume as well but not quite as offensive. In cases where yellow and magenta inks combine to form rich sunny yellows and oranges, the individual colors actually contrast against each other rather than blend.

I have a background in pre-press color tweaking and it seems the saturation was simply cranked up in an effort to make the strips look new and bright on white paper. But inks contained lead up until around 1971 which gave the color a rich and dense, almost matte, look as can be seen in any old magazine. Trying to make these old strips, which resemble stained glass in pastel, look modern is a mistake and removes their trademark gentle quaintness.

For a striking contrast in what I mean, inspect any Marvel comic book pre-1970 with those published after, like in the 1980s.

My final recommendation is to purchase the Evergreen volume for the bulk of the collection and the Checker volume two for the 1920s pages. This volume one does have some additional pages that make it worth getting, but not at the current price point of over $100.00.

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I have now also reacquired the original six volume set by Fantagraphics edited by Rick Marschall with Bill Blackbeard on volume six, and the Evergreen volume is the same yet without the ten plus pages of extra images and essays by the editors.

The six volume set has wider margins making the book itself larger, but the images are the same size as the Evergreen volume. Though almost certainly run on a different press, the color between the two editions match excellently and are much more pleasing to the eye than the Checker volumes and truer to the newsprint originals. Though they ususally sell by third parties for well over their 1990 $35.00 cover price, occasionally a deal may be found as I acquired all six in mint condition for $140.00 shipped. So hang in their if you want the essays that the Evergreen volume omits.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars There's never been anything like Little Nemo, February 24, 2008

By 

Harry Eagar (Maui) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Little Nemo In Slumberland HC Volume 1 Limited Edition (Hardcover)

There's never been a Sunday funny like "Little Nemo in Slumberland," now brilliantly recaptured after a century during which comics fans knew about it but few had seen much of it.
Volume 1 includes all the New York Herald strips from 1905 to August 1909, in color and in a generous size, though smaller than the original.
Winsor McCay's imagination in Little Nemo was so wild that it is hard to reduce to words. Nemo is a small boy, about 4 or 5 at the start, who is invited to Slumberland, "the most wonderful place in the sky," by King Morpheus to play with the princess, his small but very sophisticated looking daughter. Nemo has to traverse many dangerous territories to get there, and for the first year or so he never makes it.
The adventure opens with Nemo racing through the stars on a prancing pony, competing against rabbits riding pigs and monkeys on kangaroos. That's tame. The world of Nemo's dreams quickly becomes far stranger -- and even odder to us today, because some of McCay's extravagances of a century ago seem quaint today.
For example, in a Christmas strip he imagines Santa "coming with the speed of an automobile," 60 miles an hour. Whoosh!
It is also amusing to note how different the lives of little
boys were a hundred years ago. Nemo's parents attribute his thrashings -- he usually ends up falling out of bed -- to eating too much rich food after supper, and at one point his daddy threatens to give him "another dose of turpentine and sugar."
Apart from a fascination with automobiles, fast steamships and balloons, the modern world seldom impinges on Nemo's world. Although by 1908 the Wright Brothers were flying an airplane around Europe, no airplanes show up in the strip.
McCay had a sense of wonder but not much sense of humor. Satire breaks out in a single strip when Nemo's house is crushed by his mother's overgrown picture hat.
And once, for a few weeks in 1908, Nemo gets a social conscience and goes slumming, where he uses a magic wand to cure the ills of the poor people in Shantytown.
Pure fantasy is the subject of 99 percent of the strips, which leaves them as fresh today as when new.
Although some historians give Charles Schultz the credit for breaking the boundary of the comic frame, even though Walt Kelly did it before him, "Little Nemo in Slumberland" shows that McCay did it nearly a half century before either of them -- first, apparently, in a short-lived strip called "Little Jimmy Sneeze."
Volume 1 offers very little text, but it includes the complete file of "Tales of the Jungle Imps" that appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer in 1903, plus an assortment of proof sheets, advertising, Little Nemo games and a poster for a Little Nemo stage spectacle with a score by Victor Herbert.
Checker has published a dozen volumes of McCay's work, including his political cartoons from the World War I era and "Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend," which some critics consider to have been as innovative as "Nemo," although it was not as great as success at the time.