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Nemo becomes a song for artists to riff on-a jazz suite in many movements.

With so many creative minds at work, there is considerable room for reinterpretation and pastiche. Little Nemo: Dream Another Dream, also nominated for two 2015 Eisner Awards, is another gem: a large format book (16×21 inches) filled with new Little Nemo pages by more than a hundred contemporary comic artists. Front cover of issue #1 of “Little Nemo: Return to Slumberland.” (Click to enlarge.) of “Little Nemo: Return to Slumberland,” issue #1.

It’s an enjoyable, child-friendly series, that recently earned three Eisner Award nominations, and IDW could do a lot worse than give the go-ahead for more issues. McCay’s supporting cast, including Flip, Doctor Pill, and the King of Slumberland remain, but the racial African stereotype “Jungle Imp” character has been tactfully omitted, replaced by a new character called the Frunkus. This allows for contrast between the old-fashioned fantasy of Slumberland and Jimmy’s contemporary sensibilities. Shanower and Rodriguez have produced a credible, respectful Slumberland, pleasantly reminiscent of McCay’s style, with a few alterations: this is a new Nemo, set years after the original, following a boy named Jimmy Nemo Summerton who is not as eager to be the Princess of Slumberland’s playmate as his predecessor. In March, IDW Comics completed their initial four-issue run of Little Nemo: Return to Slumberland by writer Eric Shanower ( Adventures in Oz) and artist Gabriel Rodriguez ( Locke & Key), with a hardcover omnibus volume to be published in June. Most recently, the whole of McCay’s masterpiece became available from Taschen in Winsor McCay: The Complete Little Nemo, which has received two 2015 Eisner Award nominations. It seems that every few years someone publishes selections or sets of Little Nemo cartoons Fantagraphics had a multi-volume set starting in 1989, and Sunday Press followed with impressively large volumes in the 2000s. So long as there are dreamers and admirers of great comic art, Little Nemo will have fans, including, fortunately, artists and publishers.

A list of artists and animators who have paid tribute to McCay reads like a who’s who: Chuck Jones, Milton Caniff, Burne Hogarth, Robert Crumb, Rick Veitch, Art Spiegelman, Maurice Sendak, to name just a few. McCay’s extraordinary draftsmanship and pioneering work in animation has long had admirers.