Winsor McCay: An American Artist in Slumberland

The American cartoonist Winsor McCay (1867-1934) returned to dreams as subject matter through most of his career.

The Adventures of Little Nemo in Slumberland (1905-1914) may be the most admired and cited comic of all time among connoisseurs and cartoon artists.

Each installment of Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend (1904-1913) depicts a nightmare dreamed by someone who has eaten Welsh rarebit (or rabbit) before sleep. There are no continuing characters; the genius of the strip is in the imaginative variations on common dream themes, McCay’s amazing draughtsmanship, and the control of narrative pace in laying out extraordinarily bizarre scenes.

The cartoon below is a relatively innocuous example, but shows how McCay drew upon real dream-themes. Dream images may be built on puns: a dream may turn the “corn” on a toe into a corn plant. But sudden and catastrophic change to the body is a more disturbing theme often encountered in nightmares. (You'll need to click on this and the other comic strips to see an enlarged image and read the text.)

At times it is difficult to believe that The Rarebit Fiend ran in an ordinary newspaper. It anticipates both psychoanalysis and surrealism.

You might consider:
-What are the prominent images you’d think about?
-Do any of the images suggest associations or ideas to you?
-Does the strip seem to express a central concern or anxiety?
-Are any of the images especially provocative?

-How would our accounts of dreaming change if we took our lead from the work of artists rather than from psychological theorists?

-What happens when we focus on the details of the experience of the dream rather than on trying to explain them away, or develop a theory?

-What happens when we consider visual rather than verbal representations of dreams? (Almost all theoretical approaches reduce the dream to a verbal account; the connection between dreaming and oral and written narrative has been treated to a much greater extent than visual representations.)

The essential biography of Winsor McCay is John Canemaker’s Winsor McCay: His Life and Art (Harry N. Abrams, 2005). The most accessible edition of the Little Nemo strips is the full-color Little Nemo 1905-1914, by Winsor McCay, Evergreen, 2000. The Complete Dream of the Rarebit Fiend assembled by Ulrich Merkl is practically unobtainable, but selections can be found in various volumes available online. McCay’s animated cartoons are collected in Winsor McCay: The Master Edition (Image Entertainment, 2003), which includes commentary by animator and McCay biographer John Canemaker and an interesting short documentary.