Little Nemo in Slumberland — Omaha Sunday Bee, February 14, 1909

Winsor McCay's thirteen-panel Valentine's Day page follows young Nemo through an architectural dreamscape of ornate heart-shaped frames, mirrored archways, and blooming valentine displays. Nemo wanders alone at first, calling for his mother, then watches the giant valentines unfold and open around him before waking in the final panel, scolded for sleeping past Sunday school. McCay's draftsmanship is extraordinary: each panel expands the decorative architecture rhythmically, the page itself functioning as a single visual crescendo. First published in the *New York Herald* beginning 1905, *Little Nemo* helped establish the Sunday full-page comic as an art form — sequential panels, speech balloons, a recurring child protagonist, and a page design that demanded color printing at scale. McCay's work sits at the root of every visual convention the comic book later inherited.