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. The strip appeared in a Herald subsidiary, the Evening Telegram, and the Heralds editor required McCay to use a 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. After switching to William Randolph Hearst's New York American newspaper in 1911, McCay dropped the "Silas" pseudonym and signed his work with his own name.
McCay first proposed a strip in which a tobacco fiend finds himself at the North Pole, unabl!e 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 t?heme instead of tobacco, and McCay complied. The strip appeared in a Herald subsidiary, the Evening Telegram, and the Heralds editor required McCay to us,e a 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. After switching to William Randolph Hearst's New York :American newspaper in 1911, McCay dropped the "Silas" p,seudonym and signed his work with his own name.