‘Little Nemo’ Google Doodle Celebrates Winsor McCay 107 Years Later

The Google homepage celebrated American cartoonist Winsor McCay on Monday with a Google Doodle dedicated to “Little Nemo” 107 years after its creation.

The Google Doodle for Monday, Oct. 15 on the Google homepage shows an interactive comic strip-style animation of “Little Nemo in Google-land.” The Doodle is a tribute to the 107^th anniversary of McCay’s “Little Nemo in Slumberland,” a comic column that ran every Sunday featuring six-year-old Nemo on his quest to play with the Princess of Slumberland at King Morpheus’ castle. “Little Nemo” first ran in the Sunday edition of the New York Herald in 1905.

According to the Washington Post, McCay, who was born in 1869, influenced some of the greatest cartoonists, like Walt Disney and Maurice Sendak.

“Unlike any comic strip before or since ...,” McCay biographer John Canemaker, wrote, the Washington Post reported. “Little Nemo” “represented a major creative leap, far grander in scope, imagination, color, design, and motion experimentation than any previous McCay comic strip. As fantasist, draftsman, observer and reporter, satirist, innovator and developer of new forms, McCay must be ranked among the greatest figures of 20th-century popular art.”

After moving on to make animated films like “Gertie the Dinosaur,” Winsor McCay died in 1934 of a cerebral embolism and was laid to rest in Brooklyn.