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 rarebit theme instead of tobacco, and McCay complied. The strip appeared in a "Herald" subsidiary, the "Evening Telegram", and the "Herald"s editor required McCay to use a pseudonym for the strip work to keep it separate from his other work. McCay signed "Rarebit Fiend" strips as "Silas", a name he borrowed from a neighborhood garbage cart driver. After switching to William Randolph Hearst's "New York American" newspaper in 1911, McCay dropped the "Silas" pseudonym and signed his work with his own name. McCay married in 1891, and the marriage was not a happy one. According to McCay biographer John Canemaker,