Something black in the American Psyche: formal innovation and Freudian imagery in the comics of Winsor McCay and Robert Crumb

Can Rev Am Stud. 2010;40(2):187-211. doi: 10.3138/cras.40.2.187.

Abstract

Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo in Slumberland anticipates Robert Crumb’s work. McCay’s innocent dreamscapes seem antithetical to the sexually explicit work of anti-capitalist Crumb, but Nemo looks forward to Crumb in subject and form. Nemo’s presentation of class, gender, and race, and its pre-Freudian sensibility are ironic counterpoints to Crumb’s political, Freudian comix.

Publication types

  • Historical Article

MeSH terms

  • Cartoons as Topic* / history
  • Cartoons as Topic* / psychology
  • Freudian Theory* / history
  • History, 20th Century
  • Language*
  • Psychoanalysis / education
  • Psychoanalysis / history
  • Race Relations / history
  • Race Relations / legislation & jurisprudence
  • Race Relations / psychology
  • Social Change* / history
  • Social Conditions* / economics
  • Social Conditions* / history
  • Social Conditions* / legislation & jurisprudence
  • Social Values / ethnology
  • Symbolism
  • United States / ethnology
  • Wit and Humor as Topic / history
  • Wit and Humor as Topic / psychology