Drawn

Winsor McCay may best be known for Little Nemo in Slumberland, but it’s in his earlier feature Dream of the Rarebit Fiend in which he first explored the fantastic world of dreams. Nemo, on the surface, seemed fanciful and romantic, but was always slightly dark. Described as “the most bizarre newspaper feature in American history”, Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, in which each episode illustrates an absurd, and often savage nightmare or phobia, was even darker.

The complete run of the comic, has been lovingly assembled into one massive volume by Ulrich Merkl. Before I held this giant book in my hands I was admittedly unfamiliar with Dream of the Rarebit Fiend but with its absurdist take on fear and anxiety, it has become an instant favourite. The comics are surreal, darkly comic, highly inventive, and simply beautiful.

To top it off, the book is a labour of love for Ulrich — all independently researched, financed, and published. More than just a collection of comics, the book is also rich with history, commentary, and countless examples of how the feature influenced subsequent comics, films, and pop culture. It’s limited to 1000 copies, and can be purchased directly from the Dream of the Rarebit Fiend website. Even cooler – the book comes with a DVD featuring not only the text of the book, but high resolution scans of all 821 known episodes of the comic, including many not reprinted in the book itself — all tagged with keywords for easy searching. How’s that for extensive?