Winsor McCay's "Little Nemo in Slumberland" is a rare combination of artistry and imagination that deserves to be considered the first classic comic strip. "The Yellow Kid" came first, but it never demonstrated the superb craftsmanship of McCay's work, which is done in a distinctive "art nouveau" style that presages the coming of surrealism. Within the frames of his story McCay was able to create illusions of vast size and space, showing a word that was remarkably futuristic. Each of Little Nemo's weekly adventures told of a dream of the tousle-haired boy (of about six?) and concluded with him falling out of bed or waking up. McCay's son Robert served as the model for Nemo. Before working on the Slumberland strips McCay had experimented with other comics including "Little Sammy Sneeze," "Hungry Henriette," "Poor Jake," "Tales of Jungle Imps," and "Dream of the Rarebit Fiend" (the last one under the pseudonym Silas), but none of them even hinted at the splendor of "Little Nemo." In 1909 McCay would go on to create "Gertie the Dinosaur," the first commercially successful animated cartoon, which is probably how most people know of McCay's work. But that can only be because they have yet to be exposed to this comic strip.

The 200 "Little Nemo in Slumberland" comic strips in this book originally appeared in the "New York Herald" Sunday color supplement from 1905 to 1914 and are faithfully reproduced in their original colors from rare, vintage file-copy pages in the hands of a few choice collectors. We follow Little Nemo as he first enters Slumberland and learns to cope with his unpredictable flying bed, pursues the beautiful Princess of Slumber, searches for the castle of King Morpheus, and endures the ministrations of Dr. Pill. Nemo also meets up with the devilish Flip, a green-faced clown in a plug hat and ermine collared jacket, who starts off always trying to summon the Dawn and wake Nemo from his dreams but then becomes our little heroes boon companion in his Slumberland adventures which involved an impressive array of strange giants, beautiful mermaids, humongous elephants, mysterious space creatures, exotic parades, fantastic dirigible rides, a jolly green dragon, and anything else McCay could imagine.

By both artistic and historical standards "Little Nemo in Slumberland" is the first truly great comic strip. When you look at the great strips that followed, such as George Herriman's "Krazy Kat," George McManus' "Bringing Up Father," Bud Fisher's "Mutt and Jeff," and Frank King's "Gasoline Alley," they are all decidedly different from what McCay was doing, although the use of "art nouveau" interiors and zany byplay by McManus is clearly an homage to "Little Nemo" as far as I am concerned. There is a sense in which those who see nothing similar appearing on the funny pages until Bill Watterson's "Calvin and Hobbes" have a point, although I would acknowledge Snoopy's imaginative life in "Peanuts" as well. It is therefore totally appropriate that Watterson and Schultz are both among the artists (along with Maurice Sendak, Ron Goulart, Chuck Jones, and Art Spiegelman) who write essays exploring the genius of McCay's work. There has never been a more magical comic strip. Never.

Each (color!)strip is so beautifully mesmerizing. Its the perfect example of what can be accomplished in the comic industry. Windsor McCay was a genius!

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.

Winsor McCay was a brilliant artist and illustrator, a pioneer in cartooning and animation. Fans of Chris Ware, Edward Gorey and A. G. Rizzoli would love to have a copy of "Daydreams and Nightmares" at the ready. Fantagraphics, are you listening?

Fantagraphics Press:

A reprint edition of this title is long overdue! I'm sure the legion of today's Chris Ware fans would love McKay's "Daydreams and Nightmares." Don't delay!

This is more than just a book of Political/Editorial cartoons. When I first saw this book I thought it was great but over the years I've come across countless refrences to this amazing style and method of expressing a story. This is a gem of inspiration that has come back to me again and again.

I would really like to find and buy a copy of this book.

Highly reccomended.

The editor Mr.Richard Marschall is at one time my creative writing teacher. I think this book is great.

That's cool man

Brilliant "grown-up" comic strips by the genius behind Little Nemo in Slumberland. _Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend_ is a sometimes disturbing and consistently amazing foray into some very inspired phantasmagorical scenarios, all resulting from the various dreamers' weakness for toasted cheese late in the evening. Let this be a warning to us all!

A debt of gratitude is owed to John Cannemaker for his comprehensive book on Winsor McCay, and his many artistic endeavors. McCay, whose vivid perception has inspired artists and animators for decades, is captured in this exhaustive study. A rich range of his art complements many personal photos of McCay and his family, most notably perhaps, his son Robert, who was the inspiration for Little Nemo.

Long before a little boy and his tiger explored the imagination with wry social commentary and surrealism, Winsor McCay did the same with this amazing series of full page newspaper comics. This is a veritable treasure trove of comics history.

Admittedly, the jokes are not the same as Calvin and Hobbes so do not expect the same feelings. I find that Nemo evokes more feelings of wonder and delight while C and H brings about the hearty "guffaw". Also, the ending of every episode is exactly the same in that Nemo awakes to find the night's adventures were all within his head.

On the other hand, this book gives wonderful background of McCay and his world as well as beautiful reprints of the original prints.

I would heartily recommend this to anyone who enjoys fantasy, childhood, comics, or the dreams of past days.

Winsor McCay's "Little Nemo in Slumberland" is a rare combination of artistry and imagination that deserves to be considered the first classic comic strip. "The Yellow Kid" came first, but it never demonstrated the superb craftsmanship of McCay's work, which is done in a distinctive "art nouveau" style that presages the coming of surrealism. Within the frames of his story McCay was able to create illusions of vast size and space, showing a word that was remarkably futuristic. Each of Little Nemo's weekly adventures told of a dream of the tousle-haired boy (of about six?) and concluded with him falling out of bed or waking up. McCay's son Robert served as the model for Nemo. Before working on the Slumberland strips McCay had experimented with other comics including "Little Sammy Sneeze," "Hungry Henriette," "Poor Jake," "Tales of Jungle Imps," and "Dream of the Rarebit Fiend" (the last one under the pseudonym Silas), but none of them even hinted at the splendor of "Little Nemo." In 1909 McCay would go on to create "Gertie the Dinosaur," the first commercially successful animated cartoon, which is probably how most people know of McCay's work. But that can only be because they have yet to be exposed to this comic strip.

The "Little Nemo in Slumberland" comics in this book originally appeared in the "New York Herald" Sunday color supplement from October 15, 1905 to March 31, 1907 and are faithfully reproduced in their original colors from rare, vintage file-copy pages in the hands of a few choice collectors. There is even a special strip that appeared in the European edition of the "Herald" that was never printed in the U.S. The strip continued until 1911 and those strips are published in the other volumes in this series. In these early adventures Little Nemo first enters Slumberland and learns to cope with his unpredictable flying bed, pursues the beautiful Princess of Slumber, searches for the castle of King Morpheus, and endures the ministrations of Dr. Pill. Nemo also meets up with the devilish Flip, a green-faced clown in a plug hat and ermine collared jacket, who starts off always trying to summon the Dawn and wake Nemo from his dreams but then becomes our little heroes boon companion in his Slumberland adventures which involved an impressive array of strange giants, beautiful mermaids, humongous elephants, mysterious space creatures, exotic parades, fantastic dirigible rides, a jolly green dragon, and anything else McCay could imagine.

By both artistic and historical standards "Little Nemo in Slumberland" is the first truly great comic strip. When you look at the great strips that followed, such as George Herriman's "Krazy Kat," George McManus' "Bringing Up Father," Bud Fisher's "Mutt and Jeff," and Frank King's "Gasoline Alley," they are all decidedly different from what McCay was doing, although the use of "art nouveau" interiors and zany byplay by McManus is clearly an homage to "Little Nemo" as far as I am concerned. There is a sense in which those who see nothing similar appearing on the funny pages until Bill Watterson's "Calvin and Hobbes" have a point, although I would acknowledge Snoopy's imaginative life in "Peanuts" as well.

This volume includes "Perchance to Dream," an essay by Richard Marschall, who I think was the single biggest contributor of the strips reprinted in this volume. The essay provides a concise summary of McCay's life and career, with examples of some of his earlier work, "Little Nemo" postcards, and an incredibly detailed editorial cartoon. But the most important thing is that Marschall's efforts have preserved the premier American comic strip for the enjoyment of posterity. There has never been a more magical comic strip. Never.

Winsor McCay has been forgotten by the mainstream Nostalgia R' US spoon-fed media circus that we are all tapped into. Winsor McCay was a pioneering creative genius. He may not have been the very first motion picture animator but created some of the first animated shorts which featured CHARACTERS. His first was Gertie the Dinosaur. McCay would actually tour with his short and interact with the dinosaur on the screen, making it roll over and other tricks. McCay's Little Nemo is a feast

for the eyes. His eye for detail gives us a window to the early days of the 20th Century. The characters are completly fantastic. He was decades ahead of his time.

This Taschen book adequately reprints the first run of Winsor McCay's seminal comic strip, Little Nemo in Slumberland. Little Nemo is a 9-year old who drifts off to sleep each night only to be transported to Slumberland, a hallucinogenic world of circus performers, royal court attendants, exotic personages of all stripe, and animals both tame and wild. I loved looking at these strips as a child, but I didn't understand them until much later.

McCay worked on an epic scale. Each strip ran to dozens of dialog baloons and hundreds of clearly rendered people and things, and often involved a half dozen characters or more. The most notable denizen of Slumberland other than Nemo is Flip, Nemo's arch-nemesis, who is set on nothing more than casting Nemo out of Slumberland by tricking him into waking up. The stories are scary in the amorphous manner of dreams -- characters grow large and walk over cities, or so small they are dwarfed by raspberries, inducing a dreamlike sence of vertigo and plasticity. Another recurring dream-like theme is flight, effected by baloons, stars, giant dragonflies or even Nemo's own out-of-control bed.

The strips, originally filling a 15x23 inch newspaper page, are perhaps the most intricate and well rendered comics ever to be produced. At just over 12 inches tall, these reproductions are disappointingly small. And although the text is clear, it is tiny. Each panel is exquisitely composed and could stand on its own as a compelling work of graphic art, drawn with a beautiful art nouveau line and a rainbow pastel palette that makes one wonder what they knew about printing comics in 1905 that's been since forgotten. Although numbered for readers at the time, McKay's control of flow leaves no doubt as to the order of panels in the mind of the modern comic entusiast; he would routinely stretch time and space, and think nothing of propelling action from one panel to the next -- tricks in the bag of every modern comic artist. (As an aside, Scott McCloud's book "Understanding Comics" is a most excellent treatise on comic book art in general and page flow in particular.)

If you know of Little Nemo, but do not have this collection, go for it. Anyone that appreciates well drawn and written Sunday comics should try LN. Come on gang, become a Nemoite!!

Paging through this book is a completely humbling experience. Today, anyone with even a modicum of Photoshop chops can wow the folks back home with glitzy effects or totally synthesized environments and interfaces. (--Not that that is entirely a bad thing.) But long before computers, Winsor McCay was making vivid, fevered, fully realized jaw-dropping dreams with india ink, brush and a scratch pen. (Leave it to the psychedelic 60s to rediscover this trippy gem of the comics.) And it isn't just the narrative content, as singular as that is, that begs our attention: Even in an age of artists like J. C. Coll, Franklin Booth, Willy Pogany, Charles Dana Gibson, Rose O'Neill and other masters of illustration, Winsor McCay was a titanic genius.

The obsessive level of McCay's detail cries out for a larger sized reproduction of these great Sunday Pages. But for the price, this collection is unbeatable.

This is a good book if you want to get a feel for Little Nemo, but not if you want to have a complete collection of the strips. The artwork is beautiful and the storyline is great, unfortunately, the editor has taken out some parts of the story, so near the end it starts to become kind of clippy, so to speak.

Windsor McCay is one of my favorite artists, and I was exuberent when I found out there was a book collecting some of Nemo's adventures. Although not as comprehensive as the more expensive "Complete" books, The Palace of Ice is a great way to see if you like Little Nemo, or not. And if you do, and own the complete Little Nemo series, I still recomend buying this book.

Well, I haven't actually bought this book. I was trying to figure out whether it was material that was in the complete collection (ISBN 3-8228-6300-9), or an independant graphic novel. My only thought on that is that I recognize the cover art from the aforementioned collection, which might help some of you in deciding.