so many splendid sundays

little nemo
Originally uploaded by suttonhoo.

Right around Christmas time Sunday Press issued -- well here, let me let them tell you:

“Winsor McCay’s masterpiece, Little Nemo in Slumberland, as it has never been reproduced before. A magnificent hardbound volume of Nemo's best Sunday pages from 1905-1910, in FULL original size.”

This is no small thing -- full original size comes out to be 16x21 inches. I picked one up, chiefly on the recommendation of Chris Ware, one of my local heros (although now that the New York Times has picked him up for their Sunday Magazine he may well have moved, like his buddy Ira Glass, to New York, where they’ll love him less but pay him more. But let me check my facts on that before you quote me.)

About the book: it’s eye candy for the soul. It’s awkward, of course. It’s difficult to find a spot on the shelf for a book of that size -- I finally had to relent and display it on a small bookstand. (But that makes me nervous because I don’t want it to fade, sitting out in the light.)

The book itself is a piece of work -- the large-format puts it over the top -- but it’s McCay’s artistry that swallows you up when you peel back the pages -- both the detail of each individual panel and the flow of each panel into the next to create the entire strip. He's a master. And, as I understand it, one of the first to really nail this genre. (see: Understanding Comics for more about that -- the genre, I mean.)

If you have an interest in these things -- graphic novels, the way comics work, American artists -- run, don’t walk. Do this for yourself.

(Still on the fence? View some sample pages. And p.s.: The color fidelity of the pages shown online? Not even close to what you're gonna see in print. These shots are a little bit blurry, too. Doesn't do it justice.)