Dave Gilbert and Buckles Interview, Part I

We here at The Jade Sphinx have been dog-sitting since November for the world’s greatest canine, a Lab-Chow mix named Orpheo.  He is 16 years old, sweet tempered, and the best canine companion a man could have.

This is bound to amuse longtime friends of yours truly, as my hatred of pets of all kind has been the stuff of legend.  For years my immediate response upon touching (let alone petting) an animal was to wash my hands and control my breathing until a sense of cleanliness returned.  So when the notion of Orpheo staying with us for six months first came up, I balked.  But after several months of walking Orpheo, bathing Orpheo, playing with Orpheo and feeding Orpeho … I simply can’t imagine not having him nearby. 

Thinking about Orpheo inspired me to pull another story from the archives – and since we had such a positive reaction last week when we ran our interview with legendary comic strip creator Lee Falk (1911-1999), we decided to resurrect another interview with a celebrated pen-and-ink man.  The following is an interview we conducted in 1996 with cartoonist Dave Gilbert (born 1971), creator of the popular King Features comic strip, Buckles.

Orpheo and I hope you enjoy it.

Dave Gilbert made history when he was only 24 years-old.

It was then, in March, 1996, that King Features Syndicate first distributed his comic-strip Buckles, and Gilbert became the youngest cartoonist ever to write and draw a national strip.

Early success is something Buckles shares with his creator.  The plucky pooch quickly found national distribution in more than 100 newspapers, and went on to win reader polls in Oklahoma City and Salt Lake City (where he garnered a higher percentage of the vote than did Gov. Mike Leavitt in that year’s gubernatorial election).

Blond and blue-eyed, Gilbert looks more like a college kid than a nationally syndicated cartoonist.  Much of the Gilbert’s thoughts on life creep into his strip, and his fresh and sometimes quirky philosophy has been embraced by readers of all ages.  A recurring motif of the strip chronicles Buckles’ “romance” with a fireplug.  Because the fireplug is an inanimate object, Buckles projects all kinds of qualities and charms into it.  “Which I guess,” Gilbert says, “Is just my way of saying relationships are what you make of them.”

We caught up with Dave Gilbert at his home and studio in Syracuse, New York.

    

You were born and raised in Syracuse, New York?

Yep, I’ve been here all my life.  I don’t know if I want to stay.  The best thing about being a cartoonist is that I can work anywhere.  I could just pack up my computer system and go anywhere I wanted to.  But I think I’ll just stay here until I figure it out.

What first got you interested in comics and cartooning?

I guess I was always interested in them.  Disney animation was a big thing for me when I was a little kid.

Are there, or were there, any particular Disney movies that really did it for you?

No, I pretty much like them all.  I wanted to be an animator for the longest time.  In fact, I worked for an animation company here in Syracuse before I was syndicated.

What kind of work were you doing at the animation studio?

I was everything from a cleanup artist to an assistant animator.  I was also an animator, too, but not quite a full-blown one.  Then I discovered syndication, which I like much more.  Doing a syndicated strip, I have no boss...

Were there particular comic strips, or artists, that in some way inspired you?

Oh yeah.  Obviously Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes, Berkeley Breathed’s Bloom County, and Fox Trot.  They were my three major inspirations.

And what about that work lit your fire?  Was it just the medium, or the art, or what?

I think it was the characterization, and the way these guys wrote and drew.  I don’t think Fox Trot was as well drawn as the others, but the writing on that strip was just incredible.  There was something about all three strips that made them come alive.  Especially the characterizations of Calvin and Opus, they power both of their strips and make them fun.  They have a lot of life to them, and that's what I wanted to recreate in my own work.  I’d love to meet Berkeley Breathed, I hear he’s terrific.

I think Calvin goes back to a long tradition going back to Little Nemo in Slumberland, actually, with the sort of thing that a kids sees but other people don't.

Yeah.  That’s even in Walt Kelly’s Pogo to a degree, and he was another one of my major influences.

More Dave Gilbert and Buckles tomorrow!

Who Is Your Santa, Part III: The Santa Claus of William Joyce

Today, we actually get two Santa Clauses for a single entry as we look at the work of William Joyce (born 1957).

Joyce took the publishing world by storm in the late 1980s-early 1990s with a series of picture books, including Dinosaur Bob (1988), A Day With Wilbur Robinson (1990), and his Christmas book, Santa Calls (1993).

Though Joyce has expanded his talents into film and television production, it is his picture books that I perhaps love the best, and Santa Calls most of all.  It tells the story of Arthur Atchinson Aimesworth, boy inventor, cowboy and amateur adventurer.  With his sidekick, Spaulding Littlefeets, and his sister, Esther, he goes from Abilene, Texas to Santa’s Toyland at the North Pole.  There, Esther is kidnapped by the Dark Queen and her evil elves, and it is up to Art, Santa and the rest of the gang to rescue her.

In summary, it does not sound like much – but in execution, it is nothing short of magnificent.  I have long considered Santa Calls to be Joyce’s masterpiece, and it is a story that I seem to see with fresh eyes every year.

First off, Joyce’s talents as an illustrator were never put to better effect.  The entire book is suffused with a creamy, subtle color strongly reminiscent of the Golden Age of Illustration.  (Without a publication date, anyone coming to the book with fresh eyes could easily mistake it as a work from the 1930s or 1940s.)  True to his art deco aesthetic, Joyce reimagines Santa as a North Pole dandy, complete with flowing red frock coat (trimmed with white), striped off-white vest and dashing monocle.  And his Toyland is filled with gadgets both wondrous and fabulous.  This should not be surprising – as one of Joyce’s inspirations was… James Bond.  Joyce conceived of Santa as an older gadgeteer, and his workshop much like the highly-mechanized fortresses found in the Bond films.  Double-Ho Seven, indeed.

His Toyland – where the motto is The Best of the Old, The Best of the New, The Best That Is Yet To Be – is a major feat of imagination.  Inspired by both the spacious and ornate dreamlands found in Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo strips, it also nods its head at the Emerald City of Oz.  However, with its floodlights, bow-tied elephants, Santa-shaped buildings and walking beds… it rather makes the Emerald City look like Dubuque.

The action zips along as quickly as a Robin Hood adventure, and is richly garnished with Joycean pop culture references to everything from Punjab in Little Orphan Annie to silent screen cowboy Tom Mix to the pets found in Doc Savage.  But through it all beats a warm and generous heart, and I guarantee that this overstuffed and gorgeously designed book will leave you weepy at the final revelation.  It is my favorite Christmas picture book.

Joyce has revisited Santa in his overarching cosmology – the Guardians of Childhood.  This is his effort to tell the origin story of such childhood touchstones as Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, among others.  Here, Santa is a reformed Cossack bandit, who learns magic and compassion from the wizard, Ombric.  Though the series is not yet complete, we see some of what Santa will become – in the latest installment, he has already started construction of his Toyland.  This Santa is a dashing, reformed brigand.  He has a sense of style and the dramatic, and is more an adventurer at this point of the series than anything else.  Armed with swords or a robotic genie, this Santa is ready for all comers in his efforts to protect his band of Guardians, and we see the nurturing, patriarchal side of the man emerge.  It is an interesting transformation, and we wonder how Joyce will end the series.

In the film version released last year, Rise of the Guardians, Santa was voiced by Alec Baldwin, in what has to be the voice performance of the decade.  It is perfect holiday fare, and as Christmas approaches, you could not do better than spending it with the Guardians of Childhood.

One Last Santa Tomorrow!

The Mischievians, by William Joyce

Just in time for the holidays, William Joyce returns with a delightful new picture book. 

We here at The Jade Sphinx do not hide our admiration for the animator, illustrator, author William Joyce (born 1957) one of the great talents of our age.  We think that he is, in many ways, a modern-day Winsor McCay (1867-1934), an artist-showman with a distinct genius for entertaining children of all ages.  For some time he has been involved in the creation of a series of books centered on what he calls The Guardians of Childhood – creating a cosmology that explains the origins of beloved figures from childhood folklore from Santa Claus to the Man in the Moon.  (And we will review his latest prose novel in the series, The Sandman and the War of Dreams.)

His latest picture book, The Mischievians, however, is not part of the Guardian series, and is something of a palate cleanser for those following the series.  It is also completely unlike his earlier picture books, in that it is not a narrative story but, rather, a playful notebook/encyclopedia on Mischievians – the little gremlins responsible for missing socks, hanging boogers, bellybutton lint and a host of other social ills.

The book was Compiled with illuminations by Dr. Maximilian Fortisque Robinson Zooper, MD, PdD, LOL, OMD, QED, & Golly Gee.  Done while snapping his fingers in the air.  Just kidding.  Mayb  (the final e is stolen by a sneaky Mischievian).  So, we know already that we are in the realm of Joyce at his most raucous and, perhaps, his most naughty. 

The book details questions asked of Zooper by two children eager to know more about the forces at work that create smells, lose socks and enable embarrassing situations for us all.  And Zooper responds, outlining the various types of Mischievians with full-color illustrations.

The illustrations are quite wonderful, some done in Joyce’s customary luminescent Golden Age of American Illustration style, while many of the paintings of the Mischievians are completely alien to his other, published work.  These drawings, with all of their febrile energy and boundary-pushing intensity, owe more to Ed “Big Daddy” Roth (1932-2001), famed hot rod and bubblegum card illustrator.  But Joyce’s revamped sense of design is evident everywhere in the book, from the purposely faded and heavily-used cover (looking like a much-thumbed schoolbook) to the constant little hands of Mischievians everywhere, taking the very letters from the page.  Once again Joyce demonstrates that book design (and books themselves) are not static enterprises, but sources of both fun and motion.

Here’s a sample of the delights found in The Mischievians:

Question:

Dr. Zooper, you know when you look in the mirror and see a booger dangling out of your nose and you know it’s been there maybe all day and everybody has probably seen it?  Did a Mischievian do that?

Answer:

Yes!  This mischievous duty is performed by Danglers.  A small group of Danglers live in your nose.  Their only job is to lure the nervous Booger out of the nostril.  (Boogers are notoriously shy.)  Once out, Booger discover that they love to see and be seen.  When the Booger is visible, the Danglers return to their hideout in your nose.  Never by embarrassed by a Booger that is dangling.  A dangling Booger is a happy Booger.

Question:

Do I have to leave the Booger dangling?

Answer:

That’s between you and your Booger.

Here is William Joyce as you’ve never seen him before.  A hoot from start to finish, The Mischievians is good, old-fashioned mischievous fun.  Recommended for all children, and for the young at heart.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore – the Book Version

It should by now come as no surprise that we at the Jade Sphinx think writer, illustrator and animator William Joyce is a genius.  His magnificent drawings and water colors (so evocative of the Golden Age of Illustration), his delicious sense of whimsy, and his uncanny knack for finding the word that is the most fun have positioned him as the pre-eminent children’s entertainer of the early Twenty-First Century.  In an age when so much of children’s entertainment is violent or “dark,” the Joycean oeuvre is a welcome shaft of brilliant sunlight in what is often a very shadowy room.

So we approached the book version of Joyce’s Oscar-winning short silent film, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, with something bordering on trepidation.  (Joyce co-directed the film with Brandon Oldenburg.)  Why … when the film was so enthusiastically reviewed in these pages?

My initial hesitation was mainly because of the ambiguous and mystical qualities of the short film.  Surely a print version – dependent on text as well as visuals – would rob the story of some of its alchemy?

Well, I’m happy to report that the book version of Morris Lessmore is as beguiling as the video-version and the downloadable app.  If anything, the book version is more mysterious than the film version – with ambiguities of equal power and subtlety.

To recap the story – reader Morris Lessmore has his life thrown into chaos by a violent tornado.  Walking through the wreckage, he sees the vision of a beautiful girl carried away by books as if lifted by balloons.  He enters a magical library, where he spends the rest of his life caring for the books and sharing them with the world.  (Visitors to the library enter in black and white and leave in glorious color.)  After decades in the library, an elderly Lessmore leaves as a young woman comes to take his place.

While the film is dense with mystical passages, the book provides different conundrums.  With snappy pacing and retro visual style, we watch Lessmore spend his life tending books in a massive library.  But while he is caring for the books there – and sharing them with people in need of the curative powers of fiction – he also closes each day by writing in his own journal.  As Joyce writes, The days passed. So did the months. And then years.  When an elderly Lessmore finally leaves to join eternity, he leaves behind him his own book.  As Joyce writes, His life was a book of his own writing, one orderly page after another.  He would open it every morning and write of his joys and sorrows, of all that he knew and everything that he hoped for.  The contents remain a mystery to the reader, but the question must be asked: is the library really a metaphor for our lives, with each book representing every life lived?  Or is Joyce saying that each and every life is a book of blank pages, to be filled with deeds good or bad, as our final contribution to the great library of the world?  Or is Joyce saying that we must leave books of value (or lead lives of value) for those who will come after us?  (A typical Joycean detail is that the top of Lessmore's pen forms a question mark.)

The very malleability of the story is one of its great satisfactions, along with the Joycean habit of including references to beloved pop culture touchstones, including everything from Winsor McCay to Buster Keaton to The Wizard of Oz.  It is no wonder that Lessmore spent several weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists – and as the holidays near, it would make an ideal gift to a young person starting on the personal, life-changing journey of reading.  The art (in collaboration with Joe Bluhm) is transcendent — a visual feast for young and old alike.  More important, after sharing Morris Lessmore with a child (or lucky adult), it is interesting to ask the listener, what do you think it means?

In other Joyce news: two new volumes in his ongoing Guardians of Childhood cosmology are just arriving in bookstores now: Toothiana, Queen of the Tooth Fairy Armies, is a young adult novel, and the picture book The Sandman: The Story of Sanderson Mansnoozie.  Expect reviews in the weeks to come.

Nicholas St. North and the Battle of the Nightmare King by William Joyce

We at the Jade Sphinx ring in the holiday season with a great treat – a look at the new book about Santa Claus by celebrated children’s author and illustrator, William Joyce.

“Children’s author,” though, seems something of a misnomer, considering the breadth and range of Joyce’s ambitions and accomplishments: he has also designed film characters (Toy Story and A Bug’s Life), has formed a new company, Moonbot, a Shreveport-based animation and visual effects studio, and he has recently produced a 13-minute animated short film and an e-book app called The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore.  Joyce manages to do these things with an amazingly light touch and great insight – perhaps his real title should be Kid-in-Chief.

Earlier this year, Joyce started a remarkable undertaking: the creation of an entire cosmology incorporating all of the great myths of childhood (Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Boogeyman, etc) detailed in a series of picture books and young adult novels.  The first book in this series, which are all under a banner title The Guardians of Childhood, was The Man in the Moon, which was released this autumn to rave reviews.  He now picks up the Guardians saga with Nicholas St. North and the Battle of the Nightmare King, co-written by Laura Geringer, which continues the overall story while introducing a key character who will later evolve into the Santa Claus beloved by folklore.

The concept of inter-connected picture books and prose novels is a unique one, and facilitates Joyce’s mythology nicely.  The Guardians of Childhood series is new territory for Joyce.  Most of his celebrated picture books were really chamber pieces: A Day With Wilbur Robinson (1990) detailed a simple afternoon, Dinosaur Bob and His Adventures With The Family Lazardo (1988) described the summer of a sophisticated family and their pet brontosaurus, even his first stab at the Santa Claus legend, Santa Calls (1993), was really a one-night adventure story.  But Joyce’s goal with the Guardians is more complex and symphonic, and like L. Frank Baum and Oz, he is creating a whole alternate history, a densely packed saga of fantastic fiction that brings to life a fully-realized fantasyland.

Joyce has also rather heroically altered his signature style for his Guardians conception.  Rather than the vibrantly colored, sun-kissed slices of Americana that Joyce fans have sought in the past, Guardians tells a somewhat darker tale, with influences that run more deeply to European fantasies.  This beautifully designed book is filled with ‘illuminations’ (illustrations) by Joyce in pencil and charcoal.  The book design provides ample opportunity for Joyce to delight readers with full-page drawings and marginalia, and changes from white pages with black text to black pages with white text for a somber and effecting flashback.

Though darker than his other conceptions, Nicholas St. North and the Battle of the Nightmare King is filled with typical Joycean joie de vivre and insouciance.  Despite the darkness of tone, Joyce’s prose is optimistic, zestful and fun.  (Some chapter titles include: Wherein Speaking Insect Languages Proves to Be of Value, Where the Impossible Occurs with Surprising Regularity, and Partly Cloudy and Most Unfair.)

The plot of the book is simple:  Pitch, the Nightmare King, was imprisoned previously by the Man in the Moon.   After an accidental escape, he threatens the children in the haven of a great wizard, Ombric Shalazar.  In much need of help, Ombric is joined by the swashbuckling bandit and freebooter, Nicholas St. North.

Re-imagining Santa Claus as a reformed swashbuckler is a stroke of genius.  There has always, perhaps, been a touch of roguishness in the Big Man From the North, just as there was more than a touch of Santa Claus in swashbuckling figures as diverse as Robin Hood, Simon Templar and Zorro.  Here is how Joyce first introduces the man who would be Santa:  Later that night, in the raggedy camp of the wildest ruffian of the Russian plains, there slept a young bandit chief named Nicholas St. North.  No one knew exactly how old he was, for even he did not know his birthday, but he was old enough for the beginnings of a beard and was without argument the most daring young rascal in all the Russias.  A hero he was not.  But it was said that he once defeated an entire regiment of cavalry with a bent steak knife – while he was eating.  Impressive swordsmanship indeed, but not the kind of achievement that would make a mother proud.

Joyce also returns to the notion of a haven, or contained paradise in this book.  This recurring them can be found in the art deco mansion in Wilbur Robinson, Toyland in Santa Calls, the enchanted forest in The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs (1996), and even the oversized house in George Shrinks (1985).  Even in his nonfiction book The World of William Joyce (1997) his studio seems to be a place where the rules of adulthood are suspended.  Here, Ombric Shalazar rules over Santoff Claussen, a land with talking bugs, owl sentries, trees that become homes, and all manner of magic. 

Like figures as diverse as Michael Chabon and Ray Bradbury, Joyce has drunk deep at the well of Americana.  His influences are many, and you can catch the current of many of them in his new book:  Oz, Robin Hood, robots, Superman, and Little Nemo in Slumberland.  But William Joyce is his own thing, almost his own genre.  Nicholas St. North and the Battle of the Nightmare King is a deeply satisfying continuation of his magnum opus, which is estimated to run a full 15 volumes.  It is eminently possible that, once he is done, William Joyce will truly inherit the mantle of L. Frank Baum, and enter into the folklore of children’s lit himself.

The Man in the Moon by William Joyce

Last night your correspondent had the pleasure of attending the launch party for the new picture book by William Joyce, The Man in the Moon, held at Books of Wonder, one of the premiere independent book stores in New York City.  This is great news for fans of illustrated books and connoisseurs of children’s literature, as Joyce is a major talent who has been absent from the publishing world for too long, devoting his time and creative energies to movies like Toy Story (1995), Robots (2005) and Meet the Robinsons (2007).

Before looking at The Man in the Moon, first a brief word about Books of Wonder.  Located at West 18^th Street in Chelsea, Books of Wonder has been an oasis for book lovers for over three decades.  I have been able to find everything and anything on their shelves, from magnificent facsimile editions of L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz books (complete with color plates), to opulent editions of Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo in Slumberland, to Edward Bloor’s masterful London Calling.  In addition to books, there is a gallery in the back of the shop, complete with original works and limited-edition lithographs, a vast selection of vintage books and even an (under renovation) coffee shop.  Anyone with a love of books, children’s lit or illustration will find Books of Wonder a must-go destination.  Their Web site is:  www.booksofwonder.com.

The Man in the Moon is Joyce’s first picture book since Big Time Olie in 2002 and the first non-Rolie Polie Olie book since The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs in 1996.  Before my uninitiated readers blanch at such titles, let me state unequivocally that Joyce produces pictures books and children’s lit of an exceptionally high caliber, celebrated for his wit, his stylish watercolors and pencil drawings, and his infectious sense of the ridiculous.  His 1993 book Santa Calls is an Art Nouveau fantasia celebrating the Santa Claus myth with the most perfectly idealized Toyland to ever find itself in the pages of a book, and A Day With Wilbur Robinson (1990) is, in many ways, a sun-kissed Art Deco rift on You Can’t Take It With You.  And his hilarious Dinosaur Bob and His Adventures with the Family Lazardo (1988) might be best described as Nick and Nora Charles and their pet dinosaur.

If I sound besotted by Joyce’s work, I confess that I am, gloriously so.  The arrival of The Man in the Moon is an occasion for handsprings, unbridled kazoo playing and infectious hilarity.  And the news that The Man in the Moon is the first of an extended series, The Guardians of Childhood, including both picture books and prose novels, might inspire back flips, cartwheels and street-corner harmonizing.  Let the revels begin.

As is fitting for the first book in a series, The Man in the Moon is an origin story.  It tells how the Man in the Moon got there, and outlines his conception of those mythical beings who would watch over the children of the world.  These Guardians would later evolve into Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Mother Goose, the Sandman and the Tooth Fairy.  The first prose novel in the series, Nicholas St. North and the Battle of the Nightmare King will be available in bookstores in about two months.

Joyce has lost nothing of the richness of his illustrative style during his long hiatus from books.  Most devotees treasure his incandescent watercolors because of their distinctive sparkle inspired by a 1930s sensibility.  Like the best 1930s patter, Joyce draws on the balls of his feet, and his art is nimble, freewheeling and somehow screwball.  His books have a distinctive rhythm, much like a Little Rascals short or a classic screen comedy. 

There is much of that in Man in the Moon, but also something more.  Here, while Joyce delivers some pages with his customary Art Deco glow, much of the book harks back to a more Eastern European tradition.  There is almost a Russian folk art quality to many of the illustrations, with brings an unusual gravitas to the proceedings.  This is completely in keeping with the text of the story, which perhaps carries greater emotional and thematic depth than his previous work. 

Of course, one of the secret pleasure s of reading Joyce is looking at his illustrations and wondering at their inspiration.  A Baby Boomer steeped in a glorious period of American pop culture, Joyce’s memory seems to be housed in his eye as much as his brain.  The origin of the Man in the Moon (or MiM, as he’s called) calls to mind Superman comics as much as Moses.  Once on the Moon, he sees starfish that look for all the world like the Disney version of Capt. Nemo’s Nautilus, and it’s only after looking at the giant caterpillar on the moon that astute readers wonder … is Joyce channeling Ray Harryhausen’s Mooncalf from First Men in the Moon?

As the series progresses, both picture books and prose novels will detail how MiM created the Guardians of Childhood and also relate individual adventures.  One cannot help but wonder at the audacity of the conception.  What Joyce is undertaking is a remarkable feat of imaginative creation.  Much like C. S. Lewis or J. R. R. Tolkien – though with a lighter touch and greater wit – Joyce has promised to create his own cosmology.  His goal is not only to recreate St. Nick, Mother Goose, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and Sandman, but to weave them into an interconnected narrative that is the basis of a new myth.  Where it will all end and what shape his final cosmology will take are now unknown, but Joyce has never failed to delight, amuse and enchant this reader, and I know that the Guardians of Childhood are in good hands. 

The Guardians of Childhood

William Joyce Display at Books of Wonder

Winsor McCay and Little Nemo in Slumberland

The Genius of Winsor McCay (click to enlarge)

Since we started this week with cartoons, it seems only fitting that we end it with our animated fancies, as well.

This year is the 100th anniversary of Winsor McCay’s short film Little Nemo.  It was not the first animated film, but it was the first animated film to enter the realm of art.  McCay, who worked during both the infancy of comic strips and animated films, was a draftsman of remarkable ability.  Like many great artists, drawing was a compulsion for him.  McCay started drawing in his earliest boyhood, and did not stop until the day he had the stroke which would later kill him.  In a letter to cartoonist Clare Briggs, McCay wrote: “The principal factor in my success has been an absolute desire to draw constantly. I never decided to be an artist. Simply, I could not stop myself from drawing. I drew for my own pleasure. I never wanted to know whether or not someone liked my drawings. I drew on walls, the school blackboard, old bits of paper, the walls of barns. Today I’m still as fond of drawing as when I was a kid — and that’s a long time ago…”

McCay drew several different comic strips, as well as editorial cartoons, before beginning Little Nemo in Slumberland in 1915.  These beautifully drawn strips rely heavily on a fluid (almost languid) Art Nouveau sensibility, along with a restless imagination and rich sense of whimsy.  One of the great ironies of Winsor McCay was that while he worked during the infancy of comic strips, he was also perhaps the last great master of the medium.  (It is also important to remember that most newspaper comic strips of the day were broadsheet size with lush, lavish color.  To look at them reproduced on your computer – or even in most books – is akin to understanding a symphony when someone is simply humming it.)

Little Nemo chronicled the adventures of Nemo, who entered Slumberland every night in his dreams.  There, he encountered King Morpheus, the Princess of Slumberland, Flip (a cigar-chomping huckster) and Impy, a cannibal.  Each strip ended with Nemo awaking in bed, often contorted in a manner mimicking the end of his dream.

Beginning in 1911, McCay took his artistry to the vaudeville circuit.  McCay had made flip books for his son Robert and the seeds of animation took root in his mind.  McCay made over 4,000 drawings for his Little Nemo cartoon, working in India ink on rice paper and timing the movements with a stopwatch.  An assistant worked with him to hand-tint each frame of the film to keep a consistent look with the comic strip.  The cartoon was a tremendous success, and McCay followed it years later with another, Gertie the Dinosaur (1914). 

McCay stopped making animated films in 1921, but the fruits of his genius did not wither when he retired.  He had a tremendous influence on an entire generation of artists, illustrators and animators – including a young man named Walt Disney.

McCay was not enthusiastic over the work of many who made cartoons after him.  He was the guest of honor at a dinner in 1927 thrown by fellow animators.  During he speech, McCay said, “animation should be an art, that is how I conceived it … but as I see what you fellows have done with it is making it into a trade … not an art, but a trade … bad luck.”  He then sat down.

Readers interested in McCay should read John Canemaker’s monumental Winsor McCay: His Life and Art one of the finest artist biographies your correspondent has ever read.  Many of McCay’s cartoons are online, and readily available through a You Tube search.  Prepare to be amazed.