Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics (4)

 Before reading some of the Smithsonian comics I skimmed through all the strips and I loved seeing how vibrant and different each one was especially the styles in each comic. It was nice seeing some of McCay's work again since I remember seeing some of his work from the history of Illustration but it is nice to be able to fully read some of the comics we skimmed over during that period. It was a blast to re-read Little Nemo in Slumberland especially the strip where the characters go through a distortion similar to a funhouse mirror, it is just fun and engaging how they fill out within the panels. It is interesting looking at the comics and the shifts in styles. In the early 1900s, we see detailed characters and over time you see a shift to more simplistic and cartoon-like characters, especially in the fifties where it seemed very popular. While I enjoyed most of the comics for their vibrancy I did notice there was some unsavory use of pretty racist stereotypes. Like the "imp" character in Little Nemo, and I know these comics are dated so it shouldn't be a surprise they would use racial stereotype as a way to do potential comedy and I am not necessarily angry with it because again I know the time period these comic strips came out but it is a bit disappointing that the use of those stereotypes was printed and distributed so any age could view. I know in modern times comics have become a lot better in terms of stereotypes. 

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