8:39 a.m., Dec. 22, 2009----Early comic strip creator and pioneer in film animation Winsor McCay joined icons of American literature and culture -- including Theodore Dreiser, Walt Whitman and Buffalo Bill Cody -- in the acclaimed book A New Literary History of America thanks to an essay by University of Delaware art history graduate student Katherine Roeder.

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The book, edited by author and critic Greil Marcus and Harvard University professor Werner Sollors, has been selected as one of the 10 “Big and Beautiful: Best Gift Books of 2009” by John McAlley of National Public Radio.

“Through freshly penned and eccentrically focused essays,” the book “ventures to remap the expanse of American history through five centuries of literary and cultural landmarks,” McAlley wrote.

“I am thrilled to be included in the book,” Roeder said. “It is a testimony to McCay and his creativity and contributions to popular American culture.”

Her essay is entitled “15 October 1905, Little Nemo Sets off for Slumberland: The Comic Strip Wakes Up.”

McCay is best known for his color comic strip, “Little Nemo in Slumberland,” about a small boy and his fantastic dream adventures, which ran in the New York Herald and the New York American between 1905 and 1914.

Later McCay created an animated film, “Gertie the Dinosaur.” Gertie is credited as being the first animated cartoon character and involved thousands of hand drawn frames. McCay took Gertie on the road to perform in vaudeville.

Roeder's co-advisers are Margaret Werth, UD associate professor of art history, and Michael Leja, formerly at UD and now at the University of Pennsylvania.

“Kerry is a very accomplished graduate student,” Werth said. “McCay was an incredibly talented artist and introduced a striking new visual language to the comic strip. In her dissertation Kerry is situating his work within the broader context of American culture at the turn of the century, including amusement parks, world's fairs, circuses, and department stores.”

There are very few other graduate students in the book. Being invited to write the essay was a matter of being the right person at the right time, Roeder said. Leja was asked to serve on the editorial board for A New Literary History of America and also contributed an essay. When it was decided to include McCay in the book, Leja said he had a graduate student who was writing her dissertation on him and recommended Roeder.

Although Roeder drew from her research and dissertation, she said the essay is not a scholarly work but is written as a narrative for a broader audience. She enjoyed working with the editors and getting their feedback and suggestions.

“Little Nemo epitomizes childhood fantasy and imagination, and McCay was an important influence on Walt Disney and Maurice Sendak. Although comic strips rarely receive recognition, Little Nemo demonstrates McCay's artistry, his imagination, and prolific talent,” Roeder said. “'Gertie the Dinosaur' is an amazing work. The stack of drawings it took for the animation is as tall as McCay himself.”

A graduate of Trinity College in Washington, D.C., Roeder has a master's degree from the University of Maryland at College Park. She has served as a research fellow at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and as a curatorial staff assistant at the National Gallery of Art. She has received a Sewell C. Biggs Dissertation Writing Award, a Smithsonian Pre-doctoral Fellowship, and a Swann Fellowship for the study of caricature and cartoon art from the Library of Congress.

Article by Sue Moncure