<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

Winsor McKay, creator of Little Nemo in Slumberland, was born Zenas Winsor McKay in 1867, and was raised in Michigan, where he showed artistic talent at a very early age. When McCay was 19 his father tried to steer him into a “real” trade and enrolled him in business school. In 1889 McKay moved to Chicago, where he worked for the National Printing Company, and in 1891 he moved to Cincinatti, OH, where he created advertising posters for the Kohl and Middleton Dime Museum.

McCay married Maude Lenore Dufour and they had two children (a boy and a girl). In need of additional income, he worked as a sign painter and became an illustrator/reporter for the Cincinnati Times-Star. In 1899 his work began to be published in the humor magazine Life, and in 1903 he produced his first comic strip, Tales of The Jungle Imps by Felix Fiddle, for the Cincinnati Enquirer.

He relocated in 1903 to take a job with the New York Herald, where under the name “Silas” he produced three comic strips: Mr. Goodenough, Sister’s Little Sister’s Beau, and The Phurious Phinish of Phoolish PhilipePhunny Phrolics. Then with Little Sammy Sneeze (which debuted July 24, 1904) and Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend (September 10, 1904) his career took off. The latter strip remains one of his most famous, depicting the nightmarish (and hilarious) dreams brought on by eating the rich Welsh rarebit.

Two more followed: The Story of Hungry Henrietta (January 8, 1905) and A Pilgrim’s Progress (June 26, 1905), and then came Little Nemo in Slumberland (October 15, 1905), exhibiting all of McCay’s lavish detail, intricate line work, brilliantly simulated motion, and unbridled imagination. Nemo was the story of a young boy who, when he fell asleep, entered the lands of King Morpheus, where he engaged in outrageous adventures with his companions Flip, Inky, and the Princess.

In 1906 McCay began to entertain audiences by drawing his creations on stage, and in 1908 Little Nemo became a Broadway play. In 1911, thanks to a dispute with The Herald, McCay moved over to the Hearst paper The American, but he soon discovered that he enjoyed even less creative freedom than before.

Then McCay set his sights on animation. In 1911 he produced 4,000 drawings needed to animate Nemo, followed by How a Mosquito Operates (1914, 6,000 drawings), and Gertie the Dinosaur (1914). (Gertie actually made her “debut” in a 1913 Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend strip.) His other animated cartoons included the intense propaganda film The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918) and cartoons that strongly resemble his Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend. In 1924 he left Hearst and returned to the Herald Tribune where he tried to revive Little Nemo. It lasted for two years, but the strip’s day had passed, and he bought the rights to the character for $1. Winsor McCay spent his last eight years back at the American, producing editorial cartoons, then he died in 1934, having left an indelible imprint on American art.

Related Articles

Comics Artists