Little Nemo

On 15 October 1905, Little Nemo made his debut in the colourful Sunday comics supplement of the New York Herald, created by Winsor McCay. He would become one of the most important characters in comic book history and an icon of sequential art, easily recognisable even beyond the world of comic book enthusiasts.

Little Nemo is an American boy of about five who embarks every night—or every week for the reader—on extraordinary adventures, fantastic encounters and journeys into the impossible.

In the final panel, he inevitably wakes up for one reason or another: falling out of bed, relatives calling him, the morning light, a heavy dinner, a powerful emotion that startles him, or Flip wearing his hat bearing the words “Wake Up.”

Nemo’s goal is to answer the call of the Princess of Slumberland, “the most wonderful place in the heavens.” Acting on the orders of her father, King Morpheus, she sends various monsters and messengers to escort him to the royal court. It takes our dream traveller twenty weeks to reach King Morpheus’s realm and another twenty to be admitted into the presence of the princess, who longs to meet him. From then on, Nemo’s adventures become increasingly extraordinary, as he undertakes remarkably psychedelic exploits with an ever-growing group of friends.

After all, from someone with such an evocative name, forever associated with travel and discovery—nemo means “no one” in Latin and was the name adopted by both Ulysses and Jules Verne’s captain—we could expect nothing less than the astonishing adventures that established him as one of the leading characters in comic book history.