Books Comic strips Illustration

Little Nemo: After Winsor McCay by Frank Pé

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D. D. Degg August 18, 2021 1 minute 3 comments

Here’s a book that just came to my attention.

Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo comics strip is in the public domain, and French artist Frank Pé applies his reinterpretation in Little Nemo: After Winsor McCay.

There is no denying that Little Nemo: After Winsor McCay is an example of beautifully designed and gorgeously structured comics storytelling; truthfully, I could look at the book all day. Pé’s dedication to reflecting McCay’s obsession with spatial organization and productive page layouts is evident in nearly every page.

It’s hard to argue with the beautiful artwork.

But Pop Matters reviewer Zachary Rondinelli is is not happy with all of it:

Little Nemo: After Winsor McCay is Pé’s attempt to “pay Winsor homage by approaching the adventures of Little Nemo in [his] own way” (p. 5). While much in his gorgeously illustrated volume demonstrates Pé’s commitment to McCay’s vision, some rather substantial alterations ultimately give his version of the work a feeling of inauthenticity. Sadly, it is these changes, sometimes necessary but other times puzzling, that subsequently makes for an uneven return to McCay’s surreal playground of Slumberland.

The book is available this month? next month?

See more of Frank Pé’s Little Nemo and other art.