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Thanks to commentor Origuy for alerting me to today’s Google doodle, celebrating the art of Winsor McCay. Per Time‘s Harry McCracken:
Winsor McCay (1869-1934) was one of the first important creators of both comic strips and animation, and a pretty fair political cartoonist to boot. His masterwork was the Sunday comic Little Nemo in Slumberland, about a little kid whose dreams took him to an Oz-like fantasy world. It turns 107 today, and the artwork and imagination of every installment are as amazing as ever. Just thinking about the fact that it once appeared weekly leaves me slightly agog, and depressed about the current state of newspaper comic strips.
Someone at Google is a McCay fan too, it seems: The Google homepage is celebrating Nemo’s birthday with a wonderful, wonderfully ambitious interactive Google Doodle which captures much of the spirit of McCay’s print and film cartooning. Whoever created this can’t match McCay’s draftsmanship, but that’s O.K.: Almost eighty years after this death, nobody else has, either…
More about McCay at Steve Stiles, from where I borrowed the header illo.
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Apart from charming sequential art, what’s on the agenda at the start of a new week?
Valdivia
Ni Hao from Shanghai. This city parties hard. Don’t know if I can take two more weeks of this! ;)
I have scheduled my weds am so I can see the debate and aside from that just trying to take in the sights (the biennale is taking place right now) and see how the locals and the expats live.
It amazes me that the metro is only 3 RMB, in DC we pay so much more and for slower older and not so connected trains. CommunIsm works…
Denny
Ah, so now, 34 years on and I finally know what the lyrics of the Genesis song “Scenes from a night’s Dream” were all about.
Schlemizel
I am familiar with the guys work even though I didn’t know who he was. Incredible talent but you have to be aware of his era. The “African” dude he included in a lot of the work I have seen would not pass muster today. Well, maybe as part of an Rmoney campaign rally but not in polite society.
Anibundel
The agenda this week is to come out te other side. but that’s my agenda every week.
Also not to read Andrew Sullivan until after the election. just when you thought it was safe to go back to The Dish….
So are we all seeing Buzzfeed’s take down of the George Romney myth? turns out what we know of him is just another Mitt-fueled confabulation. The truth is, the son didn’t fall very far from the tree. At all:
One quote from the article: “wonder if (George) Romney’s square jaw was not attached to a blockhead.” t.co/Jrf9LHnU
Chyron HR
They left out the part where Nemo’s father comes and threatens to beat him if he falls out of bed again.
anibundel
Also turns out one cannot properly edit a comment from an ipad, nor get an editing button for one’s previous comment if one switches to a laptop, even if it’s under the 5minute mark. So my spelling mistakes and odd lack of capitalization born of hitting the caps key LIKE ONE DOES WHEN THEY START A SENTENCE and therefore unlocking it (thank you autocrap) will have to stand.
PurpleGirl
That is an amazing Google Doodle. They allowed the artist to take wings and fly with it.
amk
@anibundel: Everyone is whining about pad’s autocrap. Does it not have a kill button ? My 100 dollar samsung cellphone has.
Valdivia
@Anibundel:
great link to that article, very interesting.
hildebrand
Skeptical about the Billy Graham endorsement of Romney? Probably should be.
religiondispatches.org/dispatches/theeditors/6508/did_billy_graham_really_tell_romney_he%27d_%27help…
arguingwithsignposts
@Valdivia: I found the topic interesting, but doubt it will have much impact. It’s a prime example of tl;dr inside-baseball stuff and from Buzzfeed, no less. not a single cat macro!
jeffreyw
Mmm… moar coffee. @anibundel: I don’t have an iPad but I do have various Android pads and usually swap out the default keyboard app. All of these apps have a preferences or settings page where the behaviors you are finding troublesome can be changed.
Gindy51
@hildebrand: Yep, my thoughts exactly. How can someone who is demented (for more than one reason) be endorsing anyone for anything? Bet his evil son Franklin threatened to with hold the new Depends.
danielx
@anibundel:
If you must use an iPad for text entry/editing, I’m told the easiest way is just to get a Bluetooth keyboard. There’s also a Bluetooth controlled laser device which projects a virtual keyboard onto any flat surface:
thinkgeek.com/product/e722/
But it’s pretty pricey at 179.99, the battery which powers it is only good for 2.5 hours and I don’t know how well it works. (I have to admit that it would have major geek cred; I’ve seen one being used with a smartphone and it looks very cool.)
As to my agenda – besides work, figuring where to get an new wheel bearing hub installed on Mrs. X beloved 2007 Subaru Outback. For vehicles with Subaru’s supposed reputation for reliability, these cars get the weirdest shit wrong with them. However, better to get it fixed than to have the wheel fall off, and the constant dentist drill whine at 65 mph is like chewing on tinfoil.
Scott S.
Always loved McCay’s “Dream of the Rarebit Fiend” for sheer absolute silliness…
hildebrand
@Gindy51: Franklin is a piece of
shitwork. I have never liked Billy Graham, but his son is an utter disaster for the elder Graham’s hoped for legacy.The Red Pen
If you like vintage comics, check out Harry’s Scrappyland:
scrappyland.com/blog/
Schlemizel
@hildebrand:
Yeah Billy was near vegetable a few years ago, incapable of expressing himself in any way in court when the rest of the family sued the dick son to stop his efforts to bury the Rev & Mrs. Graham on the property of the amusement park he built.
Seems the boy thought it would bring more
suckersfaithful into his little roadside tourist trap if the decaying corpses were there. Dad had been against it but the boy had better lawyers & dad was not able to express his wishes in any way so the kid won. I’m sure thats a lovely little family there.pattonbt
@Anibundel: He’s really lost it, hasn’t he. And the polls are starting to look back to turning to O.
Matt McIrvin
@Schlemizel: McCay also drew editorial cartoons, and they’re weird: he was getting his themes and messages from his boss, and they’re trite and lazy just like the vast majority of editorial cartoons today, but they’re all executed with the unbelievably meticulous Winsor McCay art style.
Schlemizel
@Matt McIrvin:
I’ll have to google those, I don’t think I have ever seen one. He did a cartoon in the very early days too, here: youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=seOGEwx0NfQ
guy had some talent
hep kitty
Honestly, after yesterday, I realized this place is no longer a refuge for people to share their feelings or despair, ON VERY RARE OCCASION, without getting some kind of lecture about how I should be trying to save the world. Surprise! Done that, been there.
Some folks have become rather intolerant, making all kinds of self-righteous insulting assumptions.
I dub this blog the Enthusiasm Police.
I have never criticized this blog , any FP’r nor any other commenter even when I have been attacked. I refrain from calling names and making childish judgments. I’m not painting everyone with this brush, but hive mind does seem to be insinuating itself into this little community.
Am I going to stop talking? Nah, probably not. But, am I going to tell anyone who attacks me or preaches at me to STFU from now on? Yup.
magurakurin
@hep kitty:
I think all right thinking people in this country are sick and tired of being told that ordinary, decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not! And I’m sick and tired of being told that I am
Schlemizel
@hep kitty:
Sorry, I missed that thread.
BJ has been an odd place for a long time. It is entirely possible to be eviscerated here for being too enthusiastic, not enthusiastic enough or pointing out that you can be eviscerated for either of those two positions. While that pisses me off I tend to let it go because over-all I thing this borg’s intentions are good.
That said there are some amazingly vicious folks at times.
Smiling Mortician
@magurakurin: Magurakurin Johnson is making sense!
gene108
Norodom Sihanouk died.
ThresherK
Let’s not forget Gertie the Dinosaur too.
(Note: The presence of Winsor McCay interacting with Gertie the Dinosaur is not meant to promote Intelligent Design or anyone’s belief system. But it does make me wonder if it plays as a “documentary” to some audiences.)
dr. bloor
You can’t be aware of Winsor McCay’s existence and not be a fan.
gbear
@Scott S.: Ahh.. you got to mention Dreams before I got here. A softcover collection of Dreams of the Rarebit Friend used to be available on Amazon.com and I recommend it highly. I’ll agree with the commenters above that his treatment of black people is appalling, but the cartoons are amazing in their ability to capture the bizarre nature of dreams.
I discovered McCay when I started rehearsing with a band in a house owned by a book seller/collector. he had large pages of Little Nemo comic strips pinned up all over his house. Dozens of them everywhere you looked. I bought a large Little Nemo collection many years ago and just marvel at McCay’s art and imagination.
karl
No one’s mentioned it yet, so…’
Here’s one of the most amazing, frightening, and moving things I’ve ever seen: McKay’s recreation of the sinking of the Lusitania.
youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=todnyEe97ic#!
Brachiator
Little Nemo was never really my thing, but the google doodle is an amazing tribute, and I thank all for pointing me to more about the author.
BTW, there is a pretty good erotic parody of this stuff called Little Ego, which may still be available as a graphic novel.
dance around in your bones
I discovered a stack of Little Nemo comic books while living on a houseboat in Amsterdam. They were most entertaining, especially whilst under the influence of some primo Afghan hash.
Good times.
Another Halocene Human
@Schlemizel: Glad you mentioned it. Really takes away any joy I might find in his work, frankly.
I have an easier time overlooking the arguably racist caricature in ASTERIX because everyone’s face is drawn funny (even Cleopatra).
Another Halocene Human
@gbear:
Alan Moore’s PROMETHEA I guess was about dreams and creativity* and he did a tribute to McCay, I guess in ABC, where he addresses the racism head-on (as Promethea is Black). It’s an amazing juxtaposition of insanely seductively beautiful lineart and ugly racism.
*as a math major who can’t spell, I didn’t “get” PROMETHEA
Another Halocene Human
@gbear:
Alan Moore’s PROMETHEA I guess was about dreams and creativity* and he did a tribute to McCay, I guess in ABC, where he addresses the racism head-on (as Promethea is Black). It’s an amazing juxtaposition of insanely seductively beautiful lineart and ugly racism.
*as a math major who can’t spell, I didn’t “get” PROMETHEA
NotMax
McCay lover from way, way back.
McCay’s drawing(s) of blacks, in historical context, was not appalling, it was standard.
Leave us not forget that even up through the 1940s, there still were many black entertainers who “put on the cork” and performed their acts in minstrel blackface. See also Will Eisner’s depiction of Ebony White in his brilliant “The Spirit” strips in the 40s.
That in current times we can look back on such things and label them as caricaturish, demeaning and even degrading is a wonderful expression of the evolution and inculcation of civil rights, tolerance and equality. But also, in light of the zeitgeist of McCay’s era (and the decades immediately following it), whether such depictions by him (and others) were intended to be racist is not nearly as cut and dried as it might seem in hindsight. This is not meant to excuse any cases wherein such depictions were designed as overt expressions of racism, which cases are always to be exposed, combated and protested.