 Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini read Little Nemo in the children 's magazine Il corriere dei piccoli , and the strip was a " powerful influence " on the filmmaker , according to Fellini biographer Peter Bondanella . Comics historian R. C. Harvey has called McCay " the first original genius of the comic strip medium " and in animation . Harvey said that McCay 's contemporaries lacked the skill to continue with his innovations , so that they were left for future generations to rediscover and build upon . 
