Little Nemo

Little Nemo (originally Little Nemo in Slumberland, much later renamed for copyright reasons to In the Land of Wonderful Dreams), was a weekly Sunday comic strip written by Winsor McCay, which ran from 1905 to 1914. It featured the strange and surreal dreams of a young boy named Nemo. Strips often ended with Nemo waking up from terrifying situations his dreams had led him to.

In 1911 McCay produced a short animated film entitled Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald and his Moving Comics, featuring characters from Little Nemo.

Years and years of Sunday strips, now in the Public Domain in the US, can be found in The Comic Strips Library.

A Live Action Adaptation was made in 1984, titled Nemo or Dream One, and a feature-length Animated Adaptation, Little Nemo Adventures in Slumberland, was produced in the late Eighties.

The music video to the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' song "Runnin' Down A Dream" is an homage to the strips, as is the Genesis song "Scenes From A Night's Dream".


 * Abusive Parents: Nemo's parents threaten to spank him for things that he does in his sleep that he really has no control over, like falling out of bed, yelling in his sleep, and even kicking the covers off his bed. Pretty standard parenting for 1905.
 * All Just a Dream
 * Animated Adaptation: McCay's "Little Nemo" short could be considered one of the first.
 * April Fools' Day
 * Banister Slide: Nemo and Flip slide down a very long and winding banister in one issue, which ends up going in zig-zags, wavy bumps, and cork screws. It was later also done in the movie.
 * Barbie Doll Anatomy: There are a surprising amount of nude scenes, but both Nemo and Princess Camille lack anything resembling genitals or nipples.
 * Bedmate Reveal: There was one installment of the comic strip where Nemo wakes up, thinking his dream has ended, and to his surprise sees Flip in bed next to him, meaning he's still dreaming.
 * Black Bead Eyes
 * Captured by Cannibals: During the Candy Island story arch this happens to Nemo and Flip.
 * Catapult Nightmare
 * Christmas Episode: There was one just about every year.
 * Cigar Chomper: Flip
 * Comic Book Time: Although it's also heavily Lampshaded at times, with characters complaining they feel like they've waited "for weeks" for something to happen.
 * Dreadful Musician
 * This comic
 * It also happens with Flip in this comic
 * Dream Land
 * Dream Within a Dream
 * The Edwardian Era
 * Every Episode Ending: Nemo either falling out of bed or being woken up at the end of each comic.
 * Everything's Better with Princesses
 * Frame Break: Among its many fourth-wall gags.
 * Floorboard Failure: In Little Nemo in Slumberland, Nemo and Flip are served a new kind of breakfast food that gives them a Balloon Belly. The chairs start to collapse underneath their weight, and then the floors, leading to the entire house being demolished.
 * Gone Swimming, Clothes Stolen: Happened to Flip and Nemo once when a goat ate their clothes.
 * Have a Gay Old Time
 * In one comic there's a giant named Boob. Hearing someone say "Wait until I see that Boob!" can make modern readers chuckle.
 * "I want to stop and rest a bit, I'm fagged out from running!"
 * Heel Face Turn: Flip does one in the comic, starting out as the main antagonist by waking Nemo up from his dream to eventually becoming Nemo's friend. Though he was never really "evil" per se, but more of a nuisance. Much later in the comic, he went back to being a nuisance again. Being a nuisance was only the beginning for Flip. His vindictiveness was what caused the real damage. Whenever the people of Slumberland took measures to keep him from ruining their events by being a major nuisance, he retaliated, often ending up wreaking havoc on parts of Slumberland (or having his uncle melt them). At one point, he has his uncle melt down the whole city. Oddly enough, this same tendency is what also what starts his Heel Face Turn as he saves the group after they're captured by pirates.
 * I Hit You, You Hit the Ground: The (possible) Trope Maker.
 * I'm a Humanitarian: The natives of Candy Island try to eat Nemo and his friends.
 * The Imp: The Imp (yeah, that is his name too).
 * I Wish It Was Real: In one comic Nemo wakes up and wishes Flip were real.
 * Kid Hero
 * Made a Slave: When Flip captures Imp and introduces him to Nemo, he essentially says "He belongs to me now." There's a reason Imp doesn't show up in the animated movie.
 * Male Frontal Nudity: In an installment where Nemo is taking a bath and ends up swimming through the sea, climbing onto an iceberg and getting chased by a polar bear. Of course, we don't actually see anything, but he is naked the entire time.
 * Medium Awareness
 * In one installment, Nemo, Flip and Imp are so hungry that they begin tearing off lines from their comic panels and knocking down letters from the Little Nemo in Slumberland logo, eating them. Nemo worries that this will upset the artist but Flip maintains that it will teach the person who draws them a lesson. When Flip asks what's in the letters they're eating Nemo replies that it's printer's ink as far as he knows.
 * And something similar happens in this comic, where eventually the entire panel collapses on itself and Nemo complains to the artist.
 * Nightmare Sequence
 * Non-Ironic Clown: Though Flip's being a cigar-chomping Trickster is somewhat ironic, he's far from a Monster Clown.
 * Owl Be Damned: It is averted by the owl in the comics from 1910, when Nemo is touring Earth in his dreams.
 * Pajama-Clad Hero: The title character.
 * Pig Latin: The Professor (who is not to be confused with Professor Genius from the movie) speaks only in Pig Latin.
 * Police Are Useless: McCay lampshades it.
 * Post Modernism: With all of the lampshading, Medium Awareness, Rage Against the Author and the like, it's probably the Ur Example. Very much ahead of its time.
 * Public Domain Character
 * Puppy Love: Nemo and the Princess, in-universe.
 * Recurring Dreams: The entire comic. Suffice to say, if your dreams keep continuing every night as an ongoing story arc, it's time to see a shrink.
 * Remember the New Guy?: The Professor mainly debuted this way because he was first introduced in a popular Little Nemo stage show based on the comics, which also makes him a Canon Immigrant.
 * Save the Villain: When Flip was still the antagonist Nemo did save him a few times, most notably when King Morpheus' firing squad was about ready to execute Flip, and Nemo ran in front of him to stop it. Of course Flip was less than grateful, because in the next installment he convinces his Uncle Dawn to bring forth the sun and ruin the King's Thanksgiving dinner by waking everyone up.
 * Scenery Porn
 * Shout-Out: The music video for Tom Petty's "Running Down a Dream" is taken straight out of the Little Nemo in Slumberland comics, complete with a Lawyer-Friendly Cameo from Flip, by using a cigar smoking little imp who looked vaguely similar to Flip but different enough.
 * Sky Pirates: They attack the royal airship in one installment.
 * Sunday Strip
 * Taken for Granite: Nemo is turned into a statue for a week to hide him from Flip in one issue. And the next week Flip gets turned into a statue.
 * There Are No Therapists: You'd think that Nemo's parents would try to get some sort of help for him, seeing as he appears to wake up screaming from nightmares every night.
 * The Trickster: Flip
 * The Unintelligible: Imp
 * Vague Age: We never find out just how old Flip is. He's sometimes referred to as a child, and he's certainly the same height as Nemo, though he has a receding hairline and smokes cigars. At one point he claims to be 23 years old but even that is debatable.
 * Walk the Plank: In an issue where Nemo, Flip and the princess are abducted by pirates.