Editing Dream of the Rarebit Fiend (section)

==Background==
[[File:Winsor McCay 1906.jpg|thumb|alt=A black-and-white photograph of a seated middle-aged, balding man in a suit and tie, head leaning lightly on his right hand|[[Winsor McCay|McCay]]'s rocky marriage affected his outlook in ''Rarebit Fiend''.]]

McCay began cartooning in the 1890s and had a prolific output published in magazines and newspapers. He became known for his ability to draw quickly, a talent he often employed during [[chalk talk]]s on the [[vaudeville]] stage (alongside the likes of [[Harry Houdini]] and [[W.&nbsp;C. Fields]]). Before ''Dream of the Rarebit Fiend'' and ''Little Nemo'', McCay had shown an interest in the topic of dreams.{{sfn|Heer|2006}} Some of his earlier works, numbering at least 10 regular comic strips,{{sfn|Moody|Bissette|2010}} had titles such as ''Daydreams'' and ''It Was Only a Dream''.{{sfn|Heer|2006}} 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.{{sfn|Castelli|2007|p=549}} [[Psychoanalysis]] and [[dream interpretation]] had begun to enter the public consciousness with the 1900 publication of [[Sigmund Freud|Freud]]'s ''[[The Interpretation of Dreams|Interpretation of Dreams]]''.{{sfn|Moody|Bissette|2010}}

McCay first proposed a strip in which a tobacco fiend finds himself at the North Pole, unable to secure a cigarette and a light. In the last panel he awakens to find it a dream. The ''Herald'' asked McCay to make a series of the strip, but with a Welsh rarebit theme instead of tobacco, and McCay complied.{{sfn|Dover Publications|1973|p=ix}} The strip appeared in a ''Herald'' subsidiary, the ''Evening Telegram'', and the ''Herald''{{`}}s editor required McCay to use a [[Pen name|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.{{sfn|Dover Publications|1973|p=ix}} After switching to William Randolph Hearst's ''[[New York Journal-American|New York American]]'' newspaper in 1911, McCay dropped the "Silas" pseudonym and signed his work with his own name.{{sfn|Merkl|2007b|p=479}}

McCay married in 1891,{{sfn|Heer|2006}} and the marriage was not a happy one. According to McCay biographer John Canemaker, McCay depicts marriage in ''Rarebit Fiend'' as "a minefield of hypocrisy, jealousy, and misunderstanding".{{sfnm|1a1=Heer|1y=2006|2a1=Merkl|2y=2007b|2p=518|3a1=Canemaker|3y=2005|3p=85}} McCay was a short man, barely five feet ({{convert|5|ft|cm|disp=output only}}) tall.{{sfn|Taylor|2007|p=555}} 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 appear frequently in ''Rarebit Fiend''.{{sfn|Merkl|2007b|p=512}} Gigantism, with characters overwhelmed by rapidly growing elements, was another recurring motif, perhaps as compensation on McCay's part for a sense of smallness.{{sfn|Taylor|2007|pp=554–555}} McCay's brother Arthur had been put in a mental asylum, which may have inspired the themes of insanity that are common in the strip.{{sfn|Taylor|2007|pp=555–556}}

[[File:Dream of the Rarebit Fiend 1905-02-25 detail.jpg|thumb|500px|center|alt=Two panels of a comic strip of a man being buried alive.|Buried alive (25 February 1905)]]

Despite the strip's bleak view, McCay's work was so popular that William Randolph Hearst hired him in 1911 with a star's salary. Hearst editor [[Arthur Brisbane]] deemed McCay's work "serious, not funny", and had the cartoonist give up his comic strips (including ''Rarebit Fiend'' and ''Nemo'') to work full-time illustrating editorials.{{sfn|Heer|2006}}

===Influences===
[[File:John Tenniel - Alice in Wonderland - Pool of Tears.jpg|right|thumb|alt=Drawing of Alice floating in a pool of tears|''[[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]]'' was a likely influence which anticipated ideas in McCay's strips.]]

Scholars such as Claude Moliterni,{{sfn|Dover Publications|1973|p=xii}} Ulrich Merkl, Alfredo Castelli, and others have located possible influences. These include [[Edward Lear]]'s popular ''The Book of Nonsense'' (1870),{{sfn|Bissette|2007}} [[Gelett Burgess]]' ''The Burgess Nonsense Book'' (1901), [[Lewis Carroll]]'s ''[[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland]]'' (1865) (particularly the pool of tears scene, which seems related to the flood of sweat in one early ''Rarebit Fiend'' strip{{sfnm|1a1=Dover Publications|1y=1973|1p=xii|2a1=Canemaker|2y=2005|2p=82}}), and a variety of dream cartoons and illustrations that appeared in various periodicals McCay was likely familiar with.{{sfn|Dover Publications|1973|p=xii}}

The most probable influence on the strip was ''Welsh Rarebit Tales'' (1902) by Harle Oren Cummins. Cummins stated that he drew inspiration for this collection of fifteen science fiction stories from nightmares brought on by eating Welsh rarebit and lobster. Several of McCay's post-''Herald'' strips from 1911 and 1912 were even titled ''Dream of a Lobster Fiend''.{{sfnm|1a1=Merkl|1y=2007b|1p=487|2a1=Bukatman|2y=2012|2p=50}}

Other influences have been established: [[H.&nbsp;G. Wells]], [[L.&nbsp;Frank Baum]]'s ''[[The Wonderful Wizard of Oz]]'' (1900), [[J.&nbsp;M. Barrie]]'s ''[[Peter and Wendy]]'' (1904), [[Carlo Collodi]]'s ''[[The Adventures of Pinocchio]]'' (1883), [[Arthur Conan Doyle]]'s [[Sherlock Holmes]] story "The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb" (1889), [[Henryk Sienkiewicz]]'s ''[[Quo Vadis (novel)|Quo Vadis]]'' (1896), [[Robert Louis Stevenson]]'s ''[[Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde|Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde]]'' (1886), and [[Mark Twain]]'s "The 1,000,000 Pound Bank-Note" (1893).{{sfn|Merkl|2007b|pp=498–499}}

McCay never acknowledged the influence of Sigmund Freud, whose ''The Interpretation of Dreams'' had been published in 1900. McCay scholar Ulrich Merkl says it was likely McCay was aware of the Viennese doctor's theories, as they had been widely reported and talked about in the New York newspaper world of which was McCay was a part.{{sfn|Taylor|2007|pp=552–553}}