West Philly’s Locust Moon revives comic strip Little Nemo

Little Nemo, the charming and mischievous boy created by storied comic artist Winsor McCay, was a cartoon sensation whose adventuresome dreams were chronicled in newspaper funny pages a century ago. But the character had mostly been in repose until a West Philly comics shop reawakened the classic figure with a tribute book that draws on the talents of 100 cartoon artists, each with a distinctive tale of Little Nemo in fantasyland.

Little Nemo, the charming and mischievous boy created by storied comic artist Winsor McCay, was a cartoon sensation whose adventuresome dreams were chronicled in newspaper funny pages a century ago. But the character had mostly been in repose until a West Philly comics shop reawakened the classic figure with a tribute book that draws on the talents of 100 cartoon artists, each with a distinctive tale of Little Nemo in fantasyland.

Little Nemo: Dream Another Dream is the ninth book produced by Locust Moon Comics’ publishing arm, and its crown jewel. A party on Oct. 25 launched the oversize, 144-page hardcover book dedicated to McCay, arguably the father of the comic book and serial characterization, and his silly, sweet Little Nemo in Slumberland strips.

“I fell in love with that — the character’s sweetness — along with McCay’s complicated, but beautiful way of telling a story,” says Maria Hoey of Coin-Op Studio. She and her brother Peter were among the first illustrators Locust Moon tapped for the tribute nearly five years ago.

Maria Hoey was an odd choice given she knew little about Nemo or McCay. “I guess we were guinea pigs to get other illustrators on board,” she says with a laugh. The Coin-Op pair dove in, devoured Little Nemo comic strips and kept to McCay’s quaint, curious approach to his mischievous tot.

“Rather than be irreverent, we stuck to the sweet side. He’s a playful, nice little kid who gets into trouble. He’s Dennis the Menace. You don’t need to make it Dennis the Menace on crack. We just moved him into our Coin-Op world,” says Hoey of a design aesthetic resembling a ’50s view of the future. “He’s in our version of the real world rather than some fantasy.”

In Dream Another Dream, artists such as Benjamin Marra toyed with the fantasy by giving Nemo a fighting edge, while Denis Kitchen kept the fantastic, but made Nemo 3-D. Other artists took up the issue of racial and ethnic insensitivity and stereotypes in some of the characters in McCay’s strip, first drawn in New York City in 1905.

Joshua O’Neill, one of the founders of Locust Moon and an artist in his own right, says the array of artistic styles is one of the strengths of the new book.

“I love that artists of all stripes came to play. Dream Another Dream wouldn’t have worked otherwise.”

In the land of fantasy is where you found McCay’s Little Nemo at the turn of the 20th century. When McCay began the Little Nemo in Slumberland strip, his innovations were immediately apparent: precise, ornate lines that were rich with an Art Nouveau feel; muted, painterly colors and shaded tonal shifts; varied panel size for dramatic effect; and of course, the dream-like imagery of walking beds, gentle monsters and mystical expeditions. McCay and Nemo were heralded for their daring, so much so that McCay went on the vaudeville circuit, at first speed-drawing his creations, and then experimenting with early cell filmic animation as part of his show.

“He was an influence on everything I’ve ever drawn,” says O’Neill.

McCay and his character were a major inspiration to others, too. Walt Disney (who named one of his earliest animated films, Alice in Slumberland, in tribute to McCay), Neil Gaiman (The Sandman tips its hat to Nemo) and Chuck Jones and Walter Lantz (the creators of Woody Woodpecker and Bugs Bunny, respectively).

The flaw in McCay’s work, as viewed today, was its inclusion of racist and ethnic stereotypes, especially The Imp character, and figures of caricatured savages who spout nonsense.

O’Neill is in line with most modern comic book essayists and critics in disputing the bigot label.  “I don’t think he had hate in his heart. I think that his aspirations were pure. He probably thought that it was just a silly way in which to dehumanize things foreign to him. He wasn’t mocking. It was just a reflection of the time, sad but true.”

Paul Pope buys that explanation, but he didn’t excuse it when it came to doing his own rendition of Nemo and The Imp.

“Like Cliff Chiang  and Ron Wimberly — both representative of minorities in American society, both [of whom] took part in this book — we’re interested in the outdated racial aspects of Winsor McCay,” says Pope. “If you are not well-schooled in comics or comics lore, it’s easy to write it off as a product of its time, just the fashion.”

Pope laughs when he claims to not be politically correct, yet still seems to be shocked at McCay’s take. “The Imp was originally this horrible Stepin Fetchit Sambo character, but, in my case, I made him into a beautiful black woman. I made her very natural and not some ooga-booga, jibberish-speaking idiot.”

O’Neill chimes in that Pope — like Chiang  and Wimberly — reclaims the Imp character and the Nemo strip in the present day, giving it nobility.

“The challenge was to make Little Nemo relevant now, with artists talking back to McCay, having a conversation across the century so to speak,” O’Neill says.

While Wimberly came up with something subtle, poetic and noble in his Imp, Chiang made the character into a naturalistic black man, looking in disgust at a mask in his hand of McCay’s original version.

Farel Dalrymple went one step further. Rather than have The Imp speak a made-up language, he is speaking in perfect English. Nemo reacts with surprise, asking,  “How come I can understand you now?,” The Imp responds, “I don’t know. Maybe you used to be more racist in your dreams.”

How well Little Nemo: Dream Another Dream will fare in the comic marketplace, considering its price tag ($124.99, or about $150 with shipping in a special box) and size, isn’t known. But O’Neill and Locust Moon co-owner Chris Stevens claim that they’ve had nothing but positive vibes, especially considering that the project’s Kickstarter completion campaign this spring won 1,087 backers and $154,478 pledged, far above its $50,000 goal.

“That we had a crazy successful Kickstarter that met its goal within 48 hours is a good sign,” O’Neill says. “We knew people would be deeply into it. We had amazing artists and an inspirational subject. That’s just how we feel about everything and everyone connected to Locust Moon.”

In its brief existence, Locust Moon Comics — the shop/exhibition gallery, publishing house and annual comics festival — has built a home for this city’s comics geeks — artists and audience alike. Since 2011, Locust Moon’s mission has been rooted on Stevens and O’Neill’s (and San Francisco partner/Locust Moon Press editor-in-chief Andrew Carl’s) deep and abiding enthusiasm for the medium and its possibilities, rather than just selling Walking Dead ephemera.

“We … just love this stuff so much that when you meet other people who have a similar affection for comics you can’t help but want to build something,” says Stevens, 40.

“We’re not trying to be solely a retail store or a gallery or a publisher,” says O’Neill, 32. “We’re trying to be community builders and facilitators.”

Their third annual comics festival, held the same day as the launch party, was a showplace of community, attracting more than 1,000 people. And their shop, on 40th Street off Chestnut, is often filled with comic enthusiasts, many of them lounging on its faux-Victorian couch and petting Rooster the cat.

So why isn’t Joshua O’Neill smiling?

The pocket of South 40th at Chestnut is a curious one, lined with old and new empty buildings, ethnic restaurants and The Rotunda, the domed performance space where the comics festival was held.

Comic artist superstars who gathered at Locust Moon’s request included Bill Sienkiewicz (Marvel Comic’s Elektra: Assassin, the graphic novel Stray Toasters), Pope (Batman: Year 100), Dalrymple (The Wrenchies) and Yao Xiao (Dark Antiquity).

“I’m a comics world Don Juan who falls in love with great ideas,” says Pope of his appearance at the festival.

These internationally renowned artists mixed with locals of the idiom like Kayla Miller (the web comic Creep), Kelly Phillips (co-editor of the all-girl comic anthology Dirty Diamonds) and Rob Woods (Locust Moon Press’ 36 Lessons in Self-Destruction) for an event that’s more of a party, or family gathering, than a staid show-and-tell. “There’s genuine warmth in this community,” says Stevens.

At the fest, the only thing more animated than the art was the crowd. Patrons who seemed shy standing outside of The Rotunda — heads lowered, quietly chatting — once inside began posing like action heroes and wriggling like inflatable windsock dancers swaying in the breeze.

Before he started his festival shopping spree, local illustrator Eric Battle — art director for the upcoming Philadelphia Jazz Project coffee-table book and exhibition of visual artists profiling Philly jazz musicians, past and present — said how pleased he was that Locust Moon’s operators have become a focal point for comics art.

“They’re looking out for independent artists, whether it’s the shop or this event,” he says. “They’re making sure there’s a home for all of this talent, and that the locals are an equal part of the mix.”

During the festival, O’Neill looked dreadfully serious as he dashed between the front door and aisles filled with artists and representatives of Ralph Bakshi Enterprises, Kitchen Sink Books and Worst Things Happen at Sea. Then he was off to the signing areas where 30 of the new book’s 100 artists had come to show support for their Little Nemo tribute.

But it’s at The Rotunda’s door where I witness one of Locust Moon’s problems. Yes, there are well over 1,000 attendees. Yet when it came to collecting the $10 admittance fee, Locust Moon management was laissez-faire. Sliding scale? Sure. You don’t have the cash? Head right in.

The next day, during an artists’ brunch at the shop, O’Neill mentioned that Locust Moon had taken a bath on festival expenses. “Sure, we lost money, again,” he says with a laugh. When I mentioned what I saw at The Rotunda door, and how solvency was but a 10-spot (or 1,000 of them) away, he scoffed. “We’d rather let everyone in and [let them] spend 10 dollars more on the comic books than line our pockets. I’m happy to see the artists making money and be satisfied that they came here.”

The same thing can be said of their comics shop. The 40th Street shop and gallery is always crowded. There are artists working on cartoon strips in the studio/exhibition space. There is often a party or barbecue going on late into the night in its elegant garden — and who do you think is buying all those wieners and beer kegs? Yet, Stevens and O’Neill both say the shop doesn’t sell enough and hardly pays for itself, never mind turns a profit.

“They definitely need our support,” says Raphael Tiberino, muralist, comics illustrator, and co-owner of the neighboring Tiberino Museum, which doubles as a performance space. “Josh and Chris have quickly become the ‘Mayors of Comicsville’ for artists, geeks and lovers of the genre.”

Tiberino puts his money where his mouth is, not only by regularly “buying expensive books,” but also by renting Locust Moon gallery space for exhibitions of his comics and for large parties, even though his own museum is merely blocks away. “The publishing house is going to push them toward a large demographic, nationally and internationally, and then they’ll be able to get into the black,” he predicted.

If they can hold out.

Part of the money issue with Locust Moon comes down to who Stevens and O’Neill are. The pair met when Stevens and his wife moved from Atlantic City to West Philly about the same time O’Neill left Princeton, N.J., for the same neighborhood. They both got gigs at 40th and Locust’s Video Library and found that they had similar passions for the art and community of comic artists. In 2011, they asked the management of the rental center to build up its comics section. Not long after that, Stevens, O’Neill and out-of-town friend Andrew Carl created the publishing division of Locust Moon.They opened their own store on 40th Street in 2013.

“We both wanted to make comics happen with other people — that excited us — but didn’t realize until the store opened how much,” says Stevens.

“Opening our own store was just an extra way of making comics the focal point of our entire life,” O’Neill says, explaining why money isn’t the biggest deal to them.

 “Just writing, drawing and pushing comics meant that we didn’t have to be waiters,” says O’Neill. “Doing this one thing became what we were, the same thing that our people were.”

That’s why they felt as if they had to offer up Locust Moon as a sales and exhibition space. Locust Moon is practically a safe haven for comics geeks. “You have to offer people more than just a retail store to build community,” says O’Neill.

They won’t discuss their monthly nut except to say that they just barely pay the rent, struggle to stay in the black and live very meager existences. “But I’d rather do this than any job that I have no commitment to or emotion for,” Stevens says.

“Besides, that’s where our publishing arm comes in,” O’Neill adds. “You never know when something strikes sales gold or gets picked up for television or the movies.”

Maybe reviving Little Nemo from his slumber will do just that.

(@ADAmorosi)