Dream of the Rarebit Fiend (New York Herald Co., 1908)

Horizontal Rarebit Fiend strips are scarcer than the vertical ones, yet each has twice as much art as a vertical strip! As for this example, "too much cheese in the diet will afflict one with crazy dreams." This premise inspired McCay's weirdest feature -- weirder, even, than Little Nemo in Slumberland -- and the present selection may be the weirdest of the lot. A simple shopping errand turns into a nightmare of OCD, or Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Turns out the customer is having a dream brought on by -- what else? -- too much cheese. And of course the cheese need not be prepared in a rarebit to inflict such fantasies.