Bits and Pieces

Seriality, Shortness and Dream of the Rarebit Fiend

authored by

Ruth Mayer

Abstract

This article explores the transmedial seriality of Winsor McCay's newspaper comic strip Dream of the Rarebit Fiend (1904-24), tracking the narrative's evolution from comic to trick film (Edwin S. Porter's The Dream of a Rarebit Fiend, 1906) and animation (McCay's own Bug Vaudeville, 1921). In contrast to large parts of the critical response to McCay's work, this article does not foreground the subversive and disruptive dimension of the Rarebit narratives. Instead, it reads both the graphic and filmic narratives as integral parts of the larger serialised culture of modernity, and as attempts to chart this reality, in order to make it navigable.

Organisation(s)

English Department

Type

Article

Journal

Film Studies

Volume

17

Pages

16-31

No. of pages

16

ISSN

1469-0314

Publication date

09.2017

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Visual Arts and Performing Arts

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.7227/FS.17.0002 (Access: Closed)