For our third main character, we focus on Nemo, Prince of Slumberland!
Maybe you remember, but, well, likely not, but there was a very anime-esque, almost studio-Ghibli-esque animated movie released back in the early 90s (in fact, Hayao Miyazaki passed on directing it due to a lack of artistic freedom) called Little Nemo Adventures in Slumberland. Apparently it was a box office disaster in Japan that went through several screenwriters and a troubled development. Honestly, you’d never know if you watched it today, it’s just a great animated movie. Somehow, despite how poorly it did in Japan, it was brought over to the U.S. where it not only bombed again, it also spawned a side-scrolling Capcom-developed NES game that was generally well-received. The movie and the video game; however, were both based on a comic strip first released in 1905 (!), written and illustrated by Windsor McKay. The last strip was published in 1926, making the entire work more than 70 years old, meaning all of the material created for the comic strip are Public Domain now.
I loved the movie and I played many, many hours of the NES game (it was one of the notorious “Nintendo hard” games). Little Nemo has been a creative influence on me as long as I can remember. I drew my own Nemo-centric comic in high-school, though the scope of my project then was a bit beyond my artistic ability to faithfully render. I’ve always wanted to do something involving Nemo, and now I have the perfect place for him. Not just Slumberland, yes, he remains Prince of Slumberland, but, of course, The Waybetween!
- Character’s Name: simply Nemo
- One sentence summary of Nemo’s storyline: Unable to return to the waking world, Nemo is both stuck in Slumberland and stuck ruling it, relying on the power of the Silver Heralds to find Princess Camille and her father King Morpheus.
- His motivation, what does Nemo want in the abstract: Nemo wishes he could return home if only for a little while.
- His goal, what does Nemo want concretely: Nemo wants to kill the Nightmare King and rescue Camille and her father.
- His conflict, what is stopping him: A number of things. He’s got Slumberland to rule and it’s people to protect. Perhaps more fundamentally however, the Nightmare King and the Void are one. And just as Len’s search of the Void for her husband is difficult, so is Nemo’s for the same reasons. Beyond that, “killing” the Void is no easy task, perhaps impossible, or if not then potentially Cosmically destabilizing.
- His epiphany: There is something out there, beyond the Void, protecting the Nightmare King.
- And finally, our a little one-paragraph summary of Nemo’s storyline.
- Little Nemo grew from a boy and into a young man and throughout those years enjoyed both frequent visits to Slumberland, growing alongside his childhood friend Princess Camille, as well as celebrity as the superhero called Dream Master in the waking world. During one such super-heroic escapade, Dream Master was [REDACTED]. Nemo himself doesn’t know the exact circumstances, but he does realize he is trapped in Slumberland and unable to return to his normal life. He’s spent several years there now and since getting stuck there, Camille and her father have gone missing. Now Nemo must rule the people of Slumberland and contend with Nightmares from the Void. To this end, Nemo and Xaphnos, his Master at Arms, recruit and train new Silver Heralds to go out into the Void to search for the Princess and the King and to find some way to defeat the Nightmare King. But in his time spent toward these goals, Nemo has learned that something isn’t quite what it seems regarding the Silver Heralds’ Duty or the Waybetween itself…
The Waybetween 