Dream of the Rarebit Fiend Dream of the Rarebit Fiend Dream of the Rarebit Fiend is a newspaper comic strip by American cartoonist Winsor McCay, begun September 10, 1904. It was McCay's second successful strip, after "Little Sammy Sneeze" secured him a position on the cartoon staff of the "New York Herald". "Rarebit Fiend" appeared in the "Evening Telegram", a newspaper published by the "Herald". For contractual reasons, McCay signed the strip with the pen name "Silas". The strip had no continuity or recurring characters, but a recurring theme: a character has a nightmare or other bizarre dream, usually after eating a Welsh rarebit—a cheese-on-toast
Dream of the Rarebit Fiend and had McCay give up comic strips in favor of editorial cartooning. McCay revived the strip in 1923–1925 as "Rarebit Reveries", of which few examples have survived. A number of film adaptations of "Rarebit Fiend" have appeared, including Edwin S. Porter's live-action "Dream of a Rarebit Fiend" in 1906, and four pioneering animated films by McCay himself: "How a Mosquito Operates" in 1912, and 1921's "Bug Vaudeville", "The Pet", and "The Flying House". The strip is said to have anticipated a number of recurring ideas in popular culture, such as marauding giant beasts damaging cities—as later popularized by "King Kong"