The story introduction refers to an inspiration for this story being ‘Men of Tomorrow’, a non-fiction book by Gerard Jones which looked at how Eastern European Jewish immigrants were responsible for the birth of American comic books. SF Site’s review of that book [here], refers to the inspirate that Jones must have drawn from Michael Chabon’s novel on that theme – ‘The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay’.
Roberson clearly pondered how such an event would happen in his ‘Celestial Empire’ alternate history, and in a light and entertaining piece has his Jewish editors mulling over just how their genre titles can move with the times, coming up with ever bizarre options for stories, characters and magazine titles, before finally stumbling upon the comic strip idea.
