Here's the back cover for issue #4, with the return of Stu.

I had this image in my head right away. It took me a bit to realize I was being inspired by a couple specific comic covers, so I decided to make it a direct homage to acknowledge those sources of my idea. So this is an homage to the cover of Strange Tales #146, except instead of Eternity, it's The Man in Black called Fate from the cover of Thrill-O-Rama #1.

Still a couple small tweaks to make, but mostly there. 

Thanks for the kind words, I'm glad you liked it! Figuring out the balance on this issue was really difficult I had to rewrite it a number of times, so I wasn't sure I landed it. I'm happy it worked for you!

Cthulhu vs. Uncle Sam is going to be a one-shot, it will be going to Kickstarter. I have the art in hand (well, barring a couple of corrections, but that's a whole saga I don't want to get into...) and am in the process of adding the dialogue and sound effects and stuff. But it's pretty close to being completed. My guess is I'll have it done by the end of the month, and then I'm going to work on getting a couple variant coves from people. My aim is to have the Kickstarter running over the 4th of July weekend, so it will probably launch at the end of June and wrap up in mid or late July. 

I also just need to figure out the title. There's a concern about Uncle Sam possibly being trademarked by DC - as a title/logo, the character of course is free to use. I'm getting the impression from my trademark searches on the government site that some things DC claims to have trademarked maybe aren't, it's just a matter of how much risk I'm willing to take. I'll probably launch with that title, and if DC send me a cease and desist, I'll change it to Cthulhu vs. America or Cthulhu vs. U.S. or something instead. But, I have some time to figure it out. 

I don't think there are any other appearances of Granny Gumshoe, as far as I know nobody has used her since National Comics #71. But I really liked those Golden Age issues, clearly!

Granny is going to be in the Cthulhu vs Uncle Sam one shot as a supporting character, and I am planning to have her back soon in Crimebusters, in a couple backup stories,though it will be a while before she's back in the main feature.

I do also have a basic idea for a one shot Crimebuster giant size to tell the story of how she and Chuck first met, but I don't know if or when I'll be able to get to it.

I certainly updated a lot of stuff and extrapolated things, but (almost) everything was inspired by something from the original comics. When I read them, a bunch of stuff jumped out to me right away that really got the wheels turning in my head, and it all sort of fell into place.

I did a video a while back about the process of updated Granny, as I thought it might be interesting for other creators to hear my process of updating an old character, so I'll link it below. I don't really remember what I said, though, so here's the gist:

First, I haven't actually read all her appearances. This may sound weird, but after reading three of them, I stopped because I was getting so much inspiration that I didn't want any more. I wanted to process and distill the ideas I had without piling on too much or getting too much noise. So the only issues I've read are National Comics #57, 63, and 64. 64 was whatever - almost everything I did with Granny came from #57 and #63, and mostly form her first appearance in #57.

A bunch of things jumped out to me in this issue. 

1) She fights a living ventriloquist dummy who gained life because he was made form a magic tree. So this establishes right from the start that she does deal with magic cases.

2) Maybe more importantly, when she first discovers the dummy is alive and responsible for the murder of her friend the ventriloquist, she has almost no reaction at all to the dummy being alive. You'd think coming across a psychotic killer puppet would be a surprise, but she doesn't bat an eye. It suggested to me that she has dealt with a lot of weird stuff in the past. 

3) Similarly, when he old friend is murdered, she has almost no reaction to his death - she's not sad, or horrified, or anything, she's just like "well, bummer. Anyway, let's solve the case." It's almost callous, so again, it suggested to me that she's seen some dark stuff and it does not phase her anymore. 

4) She has a workshop where she builds a trick umbrella. Now, there are several things here. She specifically says at one point that she's made weird gadgets before, so again, the implication that she has a had a long career of weird cases, even though this is her first appearance. It also says in the text that she's an inventor, which her ability to whip up a trick umbrella gun shows. This suggested to me the steampunk elements I developed. Since this issue is in 1947 and she's an old woman, wearing if not Victorian clothes, at least Edwardian, it places her birth date in the 1880's by my figuring. So just putting two and two together - the time she's from plus an ability to invent high tech gadgets on the fly - and a steampunk background for her just made sense. That led me to develop stuff like the zeppelin and the mechanical eye. 

5) She also at the end of the first issue displays a wickedly cruel sense of humor to my reading. After cutting down the magic tree, which kills the puppet, she then takes his corpse and turns it into a desk lamp! When I read that, I was like... jeez, lady! That's dark!

6) She also, to my reading anyway, displays a similar sense of humor in #63, the issue that also introduces Jake the dog. Jake is a human criminal who has his brain and vocal cords surgically implanted in a dog as part of a complex robbery scheme. Granny solves the crime, but at the end, the only one who pays for the crime is the doctor who performed the surgery. That's because both Jake and Granny realize that human laws don't apply to dogs - they can't arrest a dog for robbery after all - so Jake decides to stay as a dog in order to escape the cops, and Granny gleefully explains to the doctor that without a human Jake around, the doc is essentially going to be brought up on murder charges for killing Jake. She doesn't seem to have any problem with Jake getting away with it, but (again, in my reading) seems amused by the fact that he manages to sort of get off by being a dog. 

This story gave me Jake, but also the two of them seemed to be on the same wavelength, and I loved the idea of them together long term. I don't think he appeared in any more issues after this, but he felt like a perfect sidekick for Granny - a talking, sardonic, streetwise crook who's happier as a dog than he was as a person. 

9) So Granny read to me like she has a sort of sly, winking sense of humor - but also dark. A dark twinkle. Given her look, especially with the umbrella and handbag, along with that sense of humor, and I was brought to mind of a more morally ambiguous Mary Poppins. Mary is ambiguous to begin with, but the twinkle in her eye is usually mostly harmless. Granny, on the other hand, killed a villain and turned him into a desk lamp [side note - I shrunk down the puppet head a lot, but if you look closely, you'll see that the miniature puppet head is now that handle of Granny's umbrella - which is also a shout-out to Mary Poppin's having the talking parrot head on her umbrella]. I also realized, thinking about other comparable characters, that she was shaping up to have a bit of a Doctor feel to her as well, but again, a dark Doctor. I was discussing this with someone at one point and they pointed out that a dark Mary Poppins is basically the whole idea for Missy, so I think the Doctor vibe is apt. But this also fit in with the idea of a steampunk zeppelin - basically a 19th century "tardis" stand in that I can use to have Granny whisk in and take Chuck and Trixie off on an adventure to a far off weird land as her companions if and when I want. [Which, incidentally, is sort of what Mary Poppins does in her stories as well]

10) The one element that I pretty much overhauled completely with almost no reference to the original is Granny granddaughter Lou, who is an annoying, wisecracking smart aleck kid in the original. This Lou is... not that. We'll eventually get to see Granny's origin story and find out about her, and Lou, as well as some other characters they are closely tied to that aren't in the series yet. Figuring out a different way to do Lou and how she fits into this new version of Granny helped me figure out Granny's backstory. 

Anyway! That's how that happened, more or less. A lot of little character things with big implications jumped out to me in those issues and it just inspired me!


Here's the video if for some reason you want even more of this:

Granny Steampunk fits her style and is a more recognizable title. Gumshoe is lost to the past and isn't likely to be as widely known to entice new or younger readers.

Your's free of charge Scott! Get 'er done and copyrighted ASAP and into her own series. Visually a wonderful look and I am betting a possible stronger selling concept to readers based on what I have seen from your postings and YouTube video.

Here's the Boy Comics Variant Cover for issue #4, a little tribute to former Boy Comics artist Joe Kubert:

Thanks! It's definitely the hardest part of the art process for me, but I'm doing my best to get better at it.