Little Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay

Winsor McCay was a cartoonist and most known for his comic strip called Little Nemo in Slumberland. These comics were printed in both the New York Herald and New York American newspapers. McCay's artistic use of color, texture, and style all make this comic very successful in it's appearance. Not only is it aesthetically pleasing, but the storytelling and concept of Little Nemo in Slumberland is great.

McCay's use of color is captivating. He uses bright saturated colors to capture your interest through out the picture and pays attention to his choice of the colors' value at the same time. Personally, I'm more attracted to his use of line weight and style of inking. Nonetheless, he tends to stray away from rendering objects, which I find interesting and very intriguing. The flat color is much easier to work with and great for comics. He uses line weight and chooses color very carefully in his illustrations. For example, the woman in polka dots on the right has very little rendering in her clothes and body in general. McCay uses the line weight and flat saturated colors along with detailed line picks to create her form. His use of slight color variation differentiates her skin tone but other wise she remains the same value all around, with the exception of her blouse and the dots to add appeal. McCay utilizes the importance of the value of colors to his advantage. If you squint your eyes, the brighter values in color stand out more. This allows your eye to jump around and appreciate his attention to detail rather than getting stuck on one spot that is overly rendered. In most of the strips Little Nemo is in his white pajamas because it makes him stand out from everyone else, which helps the reader always know where he is. His style in general and especially his watercolor skills are inspiring as well.

Not only is McCay's artistic ability stunning, but his concept and overall storyline for Little Nemo in Slumberland is amazing. How he came up with the idea, we will never know. Everyone dreams, whether you remember them or not. So this comic can relate to anyone. It has a greater audience than most comics. It is easy to read and visually appealing. Most of the strips have such good storytelling features through images that the need for words to explain what's going on isn't necessary. Notice how in the image McCay uses only three speech bubbles. Though there is only a limited amount of words the pictures let you know exactly what is going on and portray the idea clearly. He has a great talent for geting his point across with limited amounts of words and lets the image speak for itself.

Overall, I love Winsor McCay's work and I love this kind of watercolor and inking style. It's very interesting, successful, and attractive to look at. I would definitely recommend any of McCay's work and comics to anyone.