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 McCay signed a contract to collaborate on it with music by Max Hirschfeld and lyrics by George Henry Payne and Robert Gilbert Welch. Film pioneer Edwin S. Porter produced a seven-minute live-action film adaptation called "The Dream of a Rarebit Fiend" in 1906 for the Edison Company. The Fiend was played by John P. Brawn, who is tormented by imps in his bed, which flies through the air and leaves him hanging from a steeple—a scene similar to that of an early strips that ran on January 28, 1905. McCay produced four hand-drawn animated films based upon his "Rarebit Fiend"