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 a person would associate with having nightmares. McCay's most famous character, Little Nemo, first appeared in the first year of "Dream of the Rarebit Fiend", on December 10, 1904. In 1905, McCay had Nemo appear in his own strip in the "New York Herald". In comparison to "Little Nemo", the artwork of the "Rarebit Fiend" strips had minimal backgrounds, and were usually done from a static perspective with the main characters often in a fixed position. The content of "Rarebit Fiend" played a much bigger role than it did in "Little Nemo", whose focus was on beautiful visuals. The stories