I doubt that Winsor McCay was thinking about people who might be reading 106 years later when he wrote this. At least he didn’t draw them wearing football helmets.
Panel three: those look nothing like redwood trees. I wonder what misbegotten reference he used.As for “redskins”, it was used derogatorily then, and it is derogatory now. It is utter rot to say that people are being over-sensitive about it. I presume that the person trying to make excuses for it is a paleface.
It was not my intention to defend the use of any racial epithet, then or now. But it is insane to apply today’s standards in condemning the language usage of 100 or 150 years ago. Some of the text that Mark Twain or Rudyard Kipling wrote back then would be unpublishable today, but that doesn’t mean that we should bowdlerize their books now. Instead, they should be read in context of the century in which they were written. This applies to McCay as well.
I’m as PC as the next guy, but please… Are we so thin skinned or naive to believe that all of human history must be viewed through contemporary eyes? I believe that was the point Pol Pot was proposing.
biz.gocomics almost 8 years ago
Some aspects of this strip have not dated well at all.
Atanwat almost 8 years ago
I doubt that Winsor McCay was thinking about people who might be reading 106 years later when he wrote this. At least he didn’t draw them wearing football helmets.
Fruno almost 8 years ago
Panel three: those look nothing like redwood trees. I wonder what misbegotten reference he used.As for “redskins”, it was used derogatorily then, and it is derogatory now. It is utter rot to say that people are being over-sensitive about it. I presume that the person trying to make excuses for it is a paleface.
Atanwat almost 8 years ago
It was not my intention to defend the use of any racial epithet, then or now. But it is insane to apply today’s standards in condemning the language usage of 100 or 150 years ago. Some of the text that Mark Twain or Rudyard Kipling wrote back then would be unpublishable today, but that doesn’t mean that we should bowdlerize their books now. Instead, they should be read in context of the century in which they were written. This applies to McCay as well.
Atanwat almost 8 years ago
We should be more careful what we say here. Our anonymous editorial benefactor appears to have vanished again (temporarily, I hope).
mdhutton1949 almost 8 years ago
Where are Sunday’s and Tuesday’s “Little Nemo”?
Did GoComics lose their source or just forget to post them?
ecbaldwin Premium Member almost 8 years ago
I’m as PC as the next guy, but please… Are we so thin skinned or naive to believe that all of human history must be viewed through contemporary eyes? I believe that was the point Pol Pot was proposing.