It’s one thing to create beautiful art. It is a whole other thing to create art that inspires people around you. When reading through the fantasy adventure of Nemo in Little Nemo in Slumberland I thought that the images reminded me a bit of Dr. Seuss and his style of illustrations. Mainly how bizarre and imaginative they were. After a bit of research I didn’t find any evidence that Dr. Seuss found inspiration in Little Nemo in Slumberland. I guess it was a bit of a pipe dream considering Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss’s real name) was not even born at the time. However, Winsor McCay did in-fact inspire people with his art. He influenced Alan Moore, in Miracleman No. 4. and in the 1980s he inspired an issue of a teen comic book called Power Pack which featured a castle that was drawn sideways that re-enacted a classic Nemo panel with a sideways-drawn hallway that served as a bottomless pit. It paid direct homage to one of McCay’s storylines with the line “Don’t fall in, y’hear?”
What was really interesting to me was that Little Nemo is still influencing people. A video for Jascha Hoffman’s song “Some Hungry Guy”, directed by Benjamin Ahr Harrison uses The Little Nemo images to create a strikingly imaginative music video (and slightly strange too). However strange it is, I really think it is amazing that work from the 1905’s could still impact people in 2011.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/1MvNF4502EM[/youtube]
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