Suddenly, the influence for the story and illustrations in Maurice Sendak's In the Night Kitchen became very clear, and more enjoyable because of this discovery. An "aha" moment.

Little Nemo was once available as a big book, collected and edited by Bill Blackbeard, and I read from this to my two boys when they were little. The walking bed episode, and the live dragon-throne with Flip's cigar stunt were their faves, and they have an appreciation of fine comic art started at an early age. McCay's films were awesome too.

yeah, i think the only place it's available is on the website. i read an article a couple of months ago in the new york times, and it's completely self-financed. the guy had to mortgage his house to get it done!

there is also a calendar available for those of us who are nemo fans and poor. i have it, and, while it's no substitute for the OG, it's pretty cool.

As soon as I read about it last fall I ordered the book. If any book is worth $120, it's this one- just beautiful.

It's still available at the publisher's web site.

http://sundaypressbooks.com/

perhaps next time you can bring something this wonderful before it completely disappears from stores, both online and b&m...

John Harkness

Big thanks to Salon for running this article and letting the world (or at least Salon's readers) know that this book existed. I'm a longtime fan of Winsor McCay's work, or at least of what little I've managed to find over the years, which amounts to a couple of small collections and a dvd of his collected animated work, any and all of which I recommend to fans of the unusual and fantastic. Fantagraphics has done a pretty good job collecting other brilliant comics in nice and tidy publishable form but otherwise it's a travesty that we've let so many of our national treasures from those early years of "comic art" just wither away and vanish. At least there are a few people out there with some appreciation for what was for a long time a quintessential and uniquely American artform.

Now if only I can find a way to afford this without getting beaten by my wife, we'll be in business.

Thank you. This piece was a delight. I'd seen references to Little Nemo in Gaiman's Sandman series, and come across various other mentions, but I had no idea McCay's work was so extraordinary.

More delightful even than this discovery was the image of the web-footed horse that illustrates this piece. That very horse has haunted me since childhood. I came across it first in a comic I read sometime in the early '70s. In whatever lurid comic book romance this was, the horse was repurposed into a shapeshifting sea monster who seduced a girl and carried her off on his back to drown. For whatever reason, I looked and looked at that horse, feeling myself moving in and out of a dream--nascent erotic imaginings perhaps, but certain images from certain comics had that power, when I was young, and this one stayed with me.

I've always meant to track down that comic, but I had no way even where to start. Now I know the source from which it was borrowed, and that there's more of the same--a whole book full of waking dreams. What a pleasure!