The High Price of Literacy: Windsor McCay Will Make Me Poor

Between my wife taking what little money I earn (for safe keeping) and the Houston library's large collection, I buy few books. Which is good, because I naturally gravitate towards the pricey end of the spectrum. Not 18th century first editions, but nowhere near the cheap, used paperbacks that would be so much easier on the budget.

Examples: I already purchased last year "Little Nemo in Slumberland: So Many Splendid Sundays."  Little did I know that a second volume was in the making.

There goes another hundred or so bucks on another Little Nemo collection.  And Windsor McCay and his surreal draftsmanship is not done with me yet.

 

Continuing the dream theme, "Dream of the Rarebit Fiend" is a complete collection of all of Windsor McCay's fantastical exploration of what happens when one has a late-night snack of welsh rarebit before bedtime.  Like the other books, "Dream of the Rarebit Fiend" is hefty in size. Blogger Need More Coffee's review put it this way,

"...it's a foot tall and seventeen inches across, to give the comic strips reprinted within enough room to be reproduced at their original size. The book weighs about ten pounds. In other words, it's only slightly sturdier than a Roman soldier's shield and could probably be used to stop small caliber bullets..."

And it is the smallest book on this wish list.  At $133 (shipping and DVD of additional material included) it looks like I'll have to get working before even thinking about adding these two gorgeous books to my library.

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The Comic Strip Library is scanning public domain comic strips, including Little Nemo.  Check out the archives to see what newspaper readers in the 1900's were finding in their Sunday papers.

Sunday Press Books, publisher of both Little Nemo collections and more.

My copy of Many Splendid Sundays...