Dream of the Rarebit Fiend

Vorlage:Good article Vorlage:Infobox comic strip Dream of the Rarebit Fiend was a newspaper comic strip by American cartoonist Winsor McCay which began 10 September 1904. Bizarre dreams made up the content of the strip, as they would the following year in McCay's signature strip, Little Nemo. 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 was printed 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. Instead, it had a recurring theme: a character has a nightmare or other bizarre dream, usually after eating a Welsh rarebit (a cheese-on-toast dish). The character awakens from the dream in the last panel, regretting having eaten the rarebit. The dreams often revealed the darker sides of the dreamers' psyches—their phobias, hypocrisies, discomforts, and dark fantasies. This was in great contrast to the colorful, childlike fantasy dreams in Little Nemo. The strip is mostly recognized as an adult-oriented precursor to Nemo.

The popularity of Rarebit Fiend and Nemo led to McCay being hired for William Randolph Hearst's chain of newspapers with a star's salary. His editor there thought his highly-skilled cartooning was "serious, not funny", and he was made to give up comic strips to do editorial cartooning. The strip was revived 1923–1925 as Rarebit Reveries, though few examples have survived.

Rarebit Fiend was the inspiration for a number of films, including Edwin S. Porter's live-action Dream of the 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 giant characters damaging cities (as later popularized by King Kong and Godzilla).

Background

McCay's rocky marriage affected his outlook in Rarebit Fiend.

McCay had begun cartooning in the 1890s and soon became known for his ability to draw quickly. He often displayed his talents in chalk talks on the vaudeville stage alongside the likes of Harry Houdini and W. C. Fields. He produced a large number of cartoons for various newspapers, and some of his earlier cartoons showed an interest in dreams that would surface in Dream of the Rarebit Fiend and Little Nemo.Vorlage:Sfn He had worked on at least ten regular comic strips before Rarebit Fiend,Vorlage:Sfn some of which had dream-related titles such as Daydreams and It Was Only a Dream.Vorlage:Sfn McCay's were not the first dream-themed comic strips to be published. McCay's employer, the New York Herald, had printed at least three such strips, beginning with Charles Reese's Drowsy Dick in 1902.Vorlage:Sfn Psychoanalysis and dream interpretation had begun to enter the public consciousness with the 1900 publication of Freud's Interpretation of Dreams.Vorlage:Sfn

In McCay's originally proposed strip, a tobacco fiend finds himself at the North Pole, unable to secure a cigarette and a light. In the last panel, the fiend awakens to find it a dream. McCay's employer asked him to make the cartoon into a series with a Welsh rarebit theme instead of tobacco, and McCay complied.Vorlage:Sfn The New York Herald published the Evening Telegram, and the Heralds editor required McCay to use a pseudonym for his Telegram work to keep it separate from his Herald strips. McCay signed his Rarebit Fiend strips as "Silas", borrowing the name of a neighborhood garbage cart driver.Vorlage:Sfn After switching to William Randolph Hearst's New York American newspaper in 1911, McCay dropped the "Silas" pseudonym and signed his work in his own name.Vorlage:Sfn

In 1891, the 24-year-old McCay had married his then-14-year-old wife,Vorlage:Sfn Maude.Vorlage:Sfn Their marriage was not a happy one. According to McCay biographer John Canemaker, marriage is depicted in Rarebit Fiend as "a minefield of hypocrisy, jealousy, and misunderstanding".Vorlage:Sfnm McCay was a short man, barely five feet tall.Vorlage:Sfn He was dominated by his wife, who stood as tall as he was. Images of small, shy men dominated by their taller or fatter wives appeared frequently in Rarebit Fiend.Vorlage:Sfn Gigantism, with characters being overwhelmed by rapidly growing elements, was another recurring motif, perhaps as compensation on McCay's part for a sense of smallness.Vorlage:Sfn Themes of insanity are common in the strip, possibly as McCay's brother, Arthur, had been put away in a mental asylum.Vorlage:Sfn

Despite the bleak view in the strip, McCay's work was so popular that he was hired by William Randolph Hearst in 1911 with a star's salary. His work was deemed by editor Arthur Brisbane to be "serious, not funny", and he was made to give up his comic strips (including Rarebit Fiend and Nemo) to work full-time illustrating editorials.Vorlage:Sfn

Overview

A Welsh rarebit—seasoned melted cheese on toast

A year before the children's dream romps of Little Nemo, and a full generation before the Dalis and Ernsts of the Surrealist movement unleashed their subconsciouses on the public, Winsor McCay first produced the hallucinogenic comic strip Dream of the Rarebit Fiend. The strip had no recurring characters, but only a recurring concept: after eating a Welsh rarebit, the day's protagonist would be subject to the underside of his or her psyche.Vorlage:Sfn Typically, the strip would begin with an absurd situation, which would progressively become more absurd until the Fiend—the dreamer—awakened in the final panel. Some situations were merely silly: elephants falling from the ceiling, or two ladies' mink coats having a fight. Other times, they could be more disturbing:Vorlage:Sfn characters would find themselves dismembered, another buried alive from a first-person perspectiveVorlage:Sfn or a child's mother being planted and becoming a tree.Vorlage:Sfn In some strips, the Fiend was spectator, watching fantastic or horrible things happen to someone close to themselves.Vorlage:Sfn The typically bourgeois, urban protagonists were often subjected to fears related to public humiliation or loss of social esteem or respectability.Vorlage:Sfn

Rarebit Fiend was the only of McCay's strips in which he took on social or political topics, or dealt with contemporary life. He took on religious leaders, alcoholism, homelessness, political speeches, suicide, fashion, and other topics, unlike in his other strips which had fantasy or seemingly timeless backgrounds.Vorlage:Sfn The content of the strip played a much bigger role than it did in Little Nemo, whose focus was on beautiful visuals.Vorlage:Sfn

Little Nemo, McCay's most famous character, made his debut in Dream of the Rarebit Fiend.

The rarebit, a dish typically made with rich cheese thinned with ale, served melted on toast with cayenne and mustard mixed in,Vorlage:Sfn was used despite its innocuousness—it was not the sort of dish one would likely associate with having nightmares.Vorlage:Sfn In later strips, sometimes a lobster or other food was substituted for the titular rarebit, or sometimes no cause was given for the troubling dreams.Vorlage:Sfn

McCay's most famous character, Little Nemo, first appeared in Dream of the Rarebit Fiend during its first year. In 1905, McCay would have the character appear in his own strip in the New York Herald.Vorlage:Sfn In comparison to that better-known strip, the Rarebit Fiend strips had minimal backgrounds,Vorlage:Sfn and were usually done from a fixed perspective, with the main characters often in a fixed position.Vorlage:Sfn

In contrast to the highly-skilled artwork, the lettering in the dialogue balloons, like in McCay's other work, was awkward and could approach illegibility,Vorlage:Sfn especially in reproductions, where the artwork was normally greatly reduced in size.Vorlage:Sfn McCay seemed to show little regard for the dialogue balloons, their content, and their placement in the visual composition. They tended to contain repetitive monologues expressing the increasing distress of the speakers, and showed that McCay's gift was in the visual and not the verbal.Vorlage:Sfn

The stories were self-contained, whereas the story in the Nemo strips continued from week to week.Vorlage:Sfn The dreams in Nemo were aimed at children, but Rarebit Fiend had more adult-oriented subjects—social embarrassment, fear of dying or going insane, and so on—although some of the dreams in both strips were wish-fulfillment fantasies.Vorlage:Sfn Unlike most comic strips at the time, Rarebit Fiend was not humorous or escapist. The strips highlighted readers' darker selves—hypocrisies, deceitfulness, phobias and discomfort. The strip offered often biting social commentary, and marital, money and religious matters are shown in a negative light.Vorlage:Sfn McCay was interested in pushing formal boundaries, and playful self-referentiality played a role in many of the strips,Vorlage:Sfn with characters sometimes referring to McCay's alter-ego "Silas", and (more rarely) to the reader.Vorlage:Sfn Though frequent in Rarebit Fiend, this self-referentiality does not appear in McCay's other strips.Vorlage:Sfn

The strip contained a number of references to contemporary events, such as the 1904 election of Theodore Roosevelt; the recently built Flatiron Building (1902) and St. Regis Hotel (1904) in New York City; and the 1904–1905 Russo-Japanese War.Vorlage:Sfnm

Other media

McCay's work was very popular. It was adapted to film by McCay and others, and was optioned for Broadway.Vorlage:Sfn

Film

Edwin S. Porter's Dream of a Rarebit Fiend (1906)

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 was tormented by imps in his bed, which flew through the air, eventually leaving him hanging from a steeple (a scene similar to that of one of the early strips).Vorlage:Sfn

McCay produced four hand-drawn animated films based upon his Rarebit Fiend series:

How a Mosquito Operates (1912)

Put together in December 1911,Vorlage:Sfn and released in 1912,Vorlage:Sfn McCay's second film (also known as The Story of a MosquitoVorlage:Sfn) is one of the earliest examples of line-drawn animation. A giant mosquito with a top hat flies in through a window to feed on a man in bed, who tries in vain to defend himself. Eventually the mosquito drinks itself so full that it explodes.Vorlage:Sfnm Rather than expanding like a balloon, the mosquito fills up according the its body's structure, in a remarkably realistic fashion.Vorlage:Sfn The idea for the film was taken from a 1909 Rarebit Fiend strip. McCay biographer John Canemaker commends McCay for his ability to imbue the mosquito with character and a personality.Vorlage:Sfn

Bug Vaudeville (1921)

A 1921Vorlage:Sfn fantasy in which a tramp comes out from a group of meticulously drawn trees, announcing he is sleepy. He falls asleep after saying, "[C]heese cakes are bad", as they give him strange dreams. Against the backdrop, a series of bugs put on performance after performance, against highly-detailed and realistic backgrounds.Vorlage:Sfn The performance comes to an end when a spider grabs the silhouetted member of the audience (who had been visible throughout the performance) and eats him whole. Vorlage:Sfn The film is presented as if a vaudeville show, though it does not make use of the human–animation stage interaction that McCay famously used with Gertie the Dinosaur.Vorlage:Sfn

The Pet (1921)

The Pet (1921) is likely the first ever "giant monster attacking a city" film.

Inspired by a Rarebit Fiend strip from 8 March 1905,Vorlage:Sfn the film depicts a couple who adopt a mysterious animal with an insatiable appetite. It consumes its milk, the house cat, the house's furnishings, rat poison, and passing vehicles, including airplanes and a blimp, while growing larger and larger.Vorlage:Sfn Stephen R. Bissette called this 1921Vorlage:Sfn film "the first-ever 'giant monster attacking a city' motion picture ever made".Vorlage:Sfn

The Flying House (1921)

Against the backdrop of the rapidly urbanizing United States of the 1910s and 1920s, one house from the artificial grid of modern, planned America takes flight in the dream of a woman who has feasted on Welsh rarebit. The house is rendered in the meticulous realistic detail for which McCay was famous. The house is conventional in every respect—until the viewer reaches the attic, where the woman's husband is seen tending an enormous engine. He attaches a propeller to a shaft out front of the house, and tells his wife that his actions are in reaction to their landlord's intention to evict them over nonpayment. He plans to "steal the house", and they fly away to find a place where their landlord will never find them—a swamp, the ocean, even the moon, where they are chased off by the Man in the Moon with a flyswatter. The film self-consciously directs the viewers to notice the quality and accuracy of the animation when the house takes off into space, calling attention to the "remarkable piece of animation which follows", accurately showing the revolutions of the Earth and Moon and the "beautiful constellation of Orion". The woman becomes anxious that they will become "lost in the sky". The house is eventually struck by a military rocket, bringing the nightmare to an end with the woman awakening in her bed.Vorlage:Sfn The film was released in 1921.Vorlage:Sfn

Music

The Edison Military Band performed a piece called "Dream of the Rarebit Fiend" on an Edison cylinder (Edison 9585) in 1907,Vorlage:Sfn written by Thomas W. Thurban. The piece was likely inspired by Porter's 1906 film, and may have been intended to accompany it. The piece was written for 18–20-piece band, and has been recorded numerous times.Vorlage:Sfn

Main them of "Dream of the Rarebit Fiend" by Thomas W. Thurban (1907)Vorlage:Sfn

Publishing history

A giant man romps through New York City (7 January 1905).

Dream of the Rarebit Fiend was McCay's longest running comic strip. McCay mode over 300 more Rarebit Fiend episodes than he made of the more famous Little Nemo.Vorlage:Sfn The first strip appeared on 10 September 1904, in the New York Herald, a few months after the first appearance of McCay's Little Sammy Sneeze.Vorlage:Sfn It was McCay's second successful newspaper strip, after Sammy Sneeze landed him a position on the cartooning staff of the Herald. Dream of the Rarebit Fiend was printed in the Evening Telegram, which was published by the Herald at the time.Vorlage:Sfn

The strip appeared two to three times a week. Normally it filled up a quarter of a newspaper page on weekdays, and half a page on Saturdays.Vorlage:Sfn The strip normally appeared in black-and-white, but 29 of the strips appeared in color.Vorlage:Sfn Sometimes the strip's ideas were submitted by readers, which was acknowledged by McCay with a "thanks to..." on the strip beside his own signature. Amongst those credited were science fiction pioneer Hugo Gernsback.Vorlage:Sfn

Dream of the Rarebit Fiend ran until 1911. It was revived in various papers between 1911 and 1913 under other titles,Vorlage:Sfn such as Midsummer Day Dreams and It Was Only a Dream.Vorlage:Sfn From 1923 to 1925,Vorlage:Sfn the strip was revived under the title Rarebit Reveries. Though signed "Robert Winsor McCay Jr." (McCay's son), the strips are almost certainly in McCay's own hand. McCay had also signed his son's name to some of his animation. Only seven examples of Rarebit Reveries are known, though it is nearly certain others were printed.Vorlage:Sfn

Collections

Buried alive (25 February 1905)

The earliest collection, under the title Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend, appeared in 1905 from Frederick A. Stokes, reprinting 61 of the strips. This collection was reprinted in 1973 in a 10% enlarged edition by Dover Publications, with new introductory material. The Dover edition was missing the final strip from the original collection, however, as it contained ethnic humor that the publisher believed would not be to the taste of a 1970s audience.Vorlage:Sfn

Rarebit Fiend examples can be found in Daydreams and Nightmares (Fantagraphics, 1988/2006; editor Richard Marschall), an oversized collection of miscellaneous work by McCay.Vorlage:Sfnm Checker Books published the series Winsor McCay: Early Works, which reprinted many of the Rarebit Fiend strips over eight volumes.Vorlage:Sfn Checker released Dream of the Rarebit Fiend: The Saturdays (ISBN ) in 2006 which reprinted 183 of the color Saturday strips.Vorlage:Sfnm The Checker books reprinted all but three hundred of the known Rarebit Fiend strips.Vorlage:Sfn

In July 2007, German art historian Ulrich Merkl self-published a Vorlage:Convert, 464-page volume called Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, reproducing 369 of the strips in full size.Vorlage:Sfn Previous reprintings of the strip had reduced the strips to about a third of their originally published size, resulting in loss of detail and making the lettering hard to read. The size of the book made automatic binding impossible, so it had to be bound by hand. The book was limited to 1000 copies, and a DVD was included with scans of the 821 known installments of the strip,Vorlage:Sfn the complete text of the book,Vorlage:Sfn a catalogue raisonné of the strips,Vorlage:Sfn and a video of an example of McCay's animation.Vorlage:Sfnm The sources of the strips were from both Merkl's personal collection, the Cartoon Research Library of the Ohio State University,Vorlage:Sfn and microfilms purchased from the New York Public Library containing the complete New York Evening Journal run of the strip.Vorlage:Sfn Merkl has said that, on average, six hours were required per strip for scanning and restoration.Vorlage:Sfn The book also featured two essays by Italian comics editor Alfredo CastelliVorlage:Sfnm and one by Jeremey Taylor,Vorlage:Sfn former president of the International Association for the Study of Dreams.Vorlage:Sfn

Influences

Alice in Wonderland was a likely influence which anticipated ideas in McCay's strips.

Scholars such as Claude Moliterni,Vorlage:Sfn Ulrich Merkl, Alfredo Castelli and others have hunted down what they believe to have influenced McCay's work on Dream of the Rarebit Fiend. Amongst the possible influences are Edward Lear's popular The Book of Nonsense (1870),Vorlage:Sfn Gelett Burgess' The Burgess Nonsense Book (1901), Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (particularly the pool of tears scene, which seems related to the flood of sweat in one early Rarebit Fiend strip), and a variety of dream cartoons and illustrations that appeared in various periodicals with which McCay was likely familiar.Vorlage:Sfn

What was likely the most immediate influence on the strip was Welsh Rarebit Tales (1902) by Harle Oren Cummins. This collection of fifteen science fiction stories were inspired, according to Cummins, by nightmares brought on by eating Welsh Rarebit and lobster—making further likely the influence, as several post-Herald strips from 1911 and 1912 were titled Dream of a Lobster Fiend.Vorlage:Sfn

Other influences which have been established include H.G. Wells, L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan (1902), Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio, Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and the Engineer’s Thumb (1889), Henryk Sienkiewicz's Quo Vadis (1896), Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), and Mark Twain's The 1,000,000 Pound Bank-Note (1893).Vorlage:Sfn

McCay never acknowledged the influence by Sigmund Freud, whose The Interpretation of Dreams had been published in 1900. It is unlikely he was not entirely aware of the Viennese doctor's theories, however, as they had been widely reported and talked about in the New York newspaper world of which McCay was a part.Vorlage:Sfn

Legacy

Giants damaging cities and other ideas have become a part pop culture.

Rarebit Fiend set up a formula which McCay would more famously put to use in Little Nemo. A large number of the Nemo strips used ideas recycled from Rarebit Fiend, such as the 31 October, 1907, Walking Bed episode, which was used in the 26 July, 1908, episode of Little Nemo.Vorlage:Sfn

Comics scholar Jeet Heer called Rarebit Fiend "perhaps the most bizarre newspaper feature in American history".Vorlage:Sfn It has presaged ideas and scenes in the media. There are scenes in Rarebit Fiend in which a man kicks a dog, slaps a woman, beats a blind man, and throws another woman out a window, as in Luis Buñuel's L'Age d'Or (1930);Vorlage:Sfn giant characters let loose in the big city, climbing and damaging buildings and subway trains, as in King Kong (1933);Vorlage:Sfn elevators flying from buildings and other scenes as in the 2005 Tim Burton take on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory;Vorlage:Sfn and scenes in Dumbo (1941),Vorlage:Sfn Mary Poppins (1964),Vorlage:Sfn and others.Vorlage:Sfnm The strip for 9 March 1907, in which a child's bedroom becomes a lion-infested jungle, anticipated the 1950 Ray Bradbury story "The Veldt",Vorlage:Sfn and the strip from 26 September 1908, depicting a stretchable face, anticipated Salvador Dali's surrealist painting "Soft self portrait with fried bacon" (1941), and the cosmetic surgeries in Terry Gilliam's Brazil.Vorlage:Sfn

The strip was most likely an influence on episodes of Frank King's early comic strip Bobby Make-Believe, and many scholars believe that Carl Barks, a professed fan of Little Nemo, was likely exposed to Rarebit Fiend, which appeared in the San Francisco Examiner, which Barks read growing up. Several episodes of Barks' Donald Duck stories appear to have taken their subjects from Rarebit Fiend. Many scenes from animated films by Tex Avery from between 1943 and 1954 are said to show clearly a Rarebit Fiend influence.Vorlage:Sfn Science fiction illustrator Frank R. Paul painted a number of pulp magazine covers influenced by Rarebit Fiend.Vorlage:Sfn

Art Spiegelman paid parodic homage to Rarebit Fiend in his 1974 strip "Real Dream".Vorlage:Sfn In 1991, Rick Veitch began producing short comics based on his dreams. Beginning in 1994, he put out 21 issues of Roarin' Rick's Rare Bit Fiends from his own King Hell Press.Vorlage:Sfn

References

Works cited

Books Vorlage:Refbegin

Michael Barrier: Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age. Oxford University Press, 2003, ISBN 978-0-19-516729-0 (google.com). 

May R. Berenbaum: The Earwig's Tail: A Modern Bestiary of Multi-Legged Legends. Harvard University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-674-03540-9 (google.com). 

Scott Bukatman: The Poetics of Slumberland: Animated Spirits and the Animating Spirit. University of California Press, 2012, ISBN 978-0-520-95150-1 (google.com). 

Alfredo Castelli: The Complete Dream of the Rarebit Fiend (1904-1913) by Winsor McCay 'Silas'. Hrsg.: Ulrich Merkl. Ulrich Merkl, Catolog of episodes & text of the book 2007, ISBN 978-3-00-020751-8, A dreamer with his feet planted firmly on the ground, S. 549–551.  (on included DVD)

Hillary Chute, Marianne Devoken: The Cambridge Companion to Popular Fiction. Cambridge University Press, 2012, ISBN 978-0-521-51337-1, Comic Books and Graphic Novels, S. 175–195 (google.com). 

Dover editors: Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend. Dover Publications, Inc, 1973, ISBN 978-0-486-21347-7. 

Daniel Eagan: America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide To The Landmark Movies In The National Film Registry. Continuum International Publishing Group, 2010, ISBN 978-0-8264-2977-3 (google.com). 

Daniel Goldmark: Beyond the Soundtrack: Representing Music in Cinema. University of California Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-520-25070-3, Before Willie: Reconstructing Music and the Animated Cartoon of the 1920s, S. 225–245 (google.com). 

Paul C. Gutjahr, Megan Benton: Illuminating Letters: Typography and Literary Interpretation. University of Massachusetts Press, 2001, ISBN 978-1-55849-288-2 (google.com). 

Robert C. Harvey: The Art of the Funnies: An Aesthetic History. University Press of Mississippi, 1994, ISBN 978-0-87805-674-3 (google.com). 

Ulrich Merkl: The Complete Dream of the Rarebit Fiend (1904-1913) by Winsor McCay 'Silas'. Ulrich Merkl, 2007, ISBN 978-3-00-020751-8. 

Ulrich Merkl: The Complete Dream of the Rarebit Fiend (1904-1913) by Winsor McCay 'Silas'. Ulrich Merkl, Catolog of episodes & text of the book 2007, ISBN 978-3-00-020751-8.  (on included DVD)

Robert Petersen: Comics, Manga, and Graphic Novels: A History of Graphic Narratives. ABC-CLIO, 2010, ISBN 978-0-313-36330-6 (google.com). 

Jeremy Taylor: The Complete Dream of the Rarebit Fiend (1904-1913) by Winsor McCay 'Silas'. Hrsg.: Ulrich Merkl. Ulrich Merkl, Catolog of episodes & text of the book 2007, ISBN 978-3-00-020751-8, Some archetypal symbolic aspects of Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, S. 552–561.  (on included DVD)

J. P. Telotte: Animating Space: From Mickey to Wall-E. University Press of Kentucky, 2010, ISBN 978-0-8131-2586-2 (google.com [abgerufen am 25. Juni 2012]). 

Earl Theisen: A Technological History of Motion Pictures and Television. University of California Press, 1967, GGKEY:6ZBS232TCDQ, The History of the Animated Cartoong, S. 84–87 (google.com – [1933]). 

Newspapers Vorlage:Refbegin

Joshua Glenn: Waking Dream of the Rarebit Fiend In: The Boston Globe, 31. Oktober 2007. Abgerufen am 28. Juni 2012 

Joshua Glenn: Rarebit Fiend! In: The Boston Globe, 11. November 2007. Abgerufen am 25. Juni 2012 

Jeet Heer: The Dream Artist In: The Boston Globe, 8. Januar 2006. Abgerufen am 25. Juni 2012 

Web Vorlage:Refbegin

Stephen R. Bissette: Dream of the Dream of the Rarebit Fiend: An Interview with Ulrich Merkl (with Three Addendums). Myrant, 23. Juli 2007, abgerufen am 27. Juni 2012. 

Matthew Brady: Dream of the Rarebit Fiend: The Saturdays. Comics Bulletin, 12. März 2008, archiviert vom Original am 22. November 2008; abgerufen am 5. Oktober 2012. 

Steven Heller: The Rarebit Fiend Dreams On: An Interview with Ulrich Merkl. AIGA, 13. November 2007, abgerufen am 25. Juni 2012. 

Don Markstein: Dream of the Rarebit Fiend. Toonopedia, 2007, abgerufen am 25. Juni 2012. 

Katie Moody, Stephen R. Bissette: Survey 1 Comic Strip Essays: Katie Moody on Winsor McCay’s "Dream of the Rarebit Fiend". Center for Cartoon Studies, 22. November 2010, abgerufen am 28. Juni 2012. 

Huib van Opstal: Dreams and Obsessions on Shelf and Screen. For Inspiration Only, Januar 2008, abgerufen am 4. September 2012. 

Steve Raiteri: Graphic novels. Library Journal, 15. März 2006 (libraryjournal.com [abgerufen am 5. Oktober 2012]). 

Beth Davies Stofka: The Complete Dream of the Rarebit Fiend (1904-1913) by Winsor McCay 'Silas". Ulrich Merkl, 2007. Broken Frontier, 3. Februar 2008, abgerufen am 5. Oktober 2012. 

James E. Young: Art Spiegelman's Maus and the After-Images of History. New York Times, 2000, abgerufen am 4. Juli 2012. 

External links

Strips

• Complete scans from the Ulrich Merkl DVD at The Internet Archive
• Archives of Dream of the Rarebit Fiend at Comic Strip Library

Films

• How a Mosquito Operates (1912) at YouTube
• Bug Vaudeville (1921) at YouTube
• The Flying House (1921) at YouTube

Other

• The Burgess Nonsense Book (1901) by Gelett Burgess at the Internet Archive
• Welsh Rarebit Tales (1902) by Harle Oren Cummins at the Internet Archive