 In his comics and animation McCay used stock ethnic stereotypes common in his era. A conscious attempt to offend is not apparent. He depicted blacks as savages, or wishing they could be white. Most prominent were a pair of characters in Little Nemo: the ill-tempered Irishman Flip and the rarely speaking grass-skirted African Little Imp. In the animated Little Nemo, the Anglo-Saxon Nemo is shown drawn in a dignified Art Nouveau style, and controls by magic the more grotesquely caricatured Flip and Imp. Women were few in McCay's work, and were depicted as superficial, jealous, and argumentative; the Princess in Little Nemo never partook in the camaraderie the males shared.
