Saturday 19 April 2014

Little Nemo: Dream Another Dream

GERHARD:
(from Gerz Blog, 7/17 April 2014)
I received this commission request from Erik:
"I'd like you to design a full color cover for a fictitious Little Nemo story. As paper size I have 15x20 in mind (your Gerhard Dreams print format). I would like a dream scene with Nemo in which there are also (dreamlike) buildings and animals. And I would like you to design the lettering for the title of this 'book'."
...Thanks to Lou Copeland who saw the pencilled version of this on a previous blog post and alerted me to this amazing project -- Little Nemo: Dream Another Dream. I contacted them and let them know I was doing this commission. I said that I didn't know if they'd be interested in including this in their book. I just thought that I'd show it to them and I thought it was an interesting coincidence. I received this reply:
"Wow, what a wonderful surprise! We're enormous fans of your work, and it's both lucky and amazing (not to mention flattering) that you'd reach out to us while in the midst of a Nemo commission. Of course we'd be honored to include this in the book! It looks incredible already."
So... how cool is that?
Commission: Little Nemo In Slumberland (2014)
Art by Gerhard 

 -- See the final coloured version at Gerz Blog --

LOCUST MOON PRESS:
(from the Locust Moon blog, 6 August 2013)
Winsor McCay was perhaps the greatest cartoonist of all time, and the Sunday newspaper strip Little Nemo In Slumberland is his most enduring creation. Detailing the adventures of its titular character in The Land of Wonderful Dreams, the early twentieth century opus is one of the most inventive and visually stunning works of American art. A century later, the comic medium is still racing to keep up with the richness, draftsmanship, imagination, and wonder of McCay's fantastic storytelling and wild Slumberland universe.

In Locust Moon Press’ upcoming anthology Little Nemo: Dream Another Dream, many of the world’s finest cartoonists will pay tribute to the master and his masterpiece by creating new Little Nemo strips, following their own voices down paths lit by McCay. Contributors include Paul Pope, JH Williams III, Bill Sienkiewicz, David Mack, Carla Speed McNeil, Charles Vess, Peter Bagge, Dean Haspiel, Farel Dalrymple, Marc Hempel, Brandon Graham, P. Craig Russell, Jeremy Bastian, Jim Rugg, Ron Wimberly, Scott Morse, David Petersen, J.G. Jones, Mike Allred, Dean Motter, Yuko Shimizu, Roger Langridge, and Mark Buckingham, among many others.

To be published in the fall of 2014 as both a newspaper and a hardcover book at the full size of the original Little Nemo broadsheet pages (16″ x 21″), this book will celebrate McCay's endless legacy, chart his influence on generations of modern cartoonists, and most of all shine a light back on an artist who has given his art form so much, and whose work should be more widely known.

This is a love song for Winsor McCay, Little Nemo, and the limitless possibilities of comics.

1 comment:

Travis Pelkie said...

OW!

I'm sorry, I just have to pick up my jaw, because it just #$#%ing dropped at the sight of this beautiful piece. WOW!

OK, I'll have to make sure to order this book when it comes out. I think I would have anyway based on the other contributors, but holy...

Man, if Dave could squeeze in a cover for the Little Nemo book that IDW is doing, we'd have two awesome McCay tributes from the guys. Except Dave's lettering would be far better than the original source...