There she is, rendered for the first time in John’s beautiful sepia style!

Believe it or not, bringing Shanna into this story was Phil’s idea, not mine, even though I had already written her on and off for more than a decade before her “first appearance” here (chiefly in my first major comics series, Fans.)

What’s more, I was not an easy sell when he first suggested it, even though one of his motives was to make me happier with the story by injecting one of my favorite creations into it. (Not that he was wrecking the story just to pacify me; it was also becoming clear that we needed someone to assume the general role she takes up here.) One thing that bothers me a lot about comics storytelling is how often it rests on past achievements to the exclusion of coming up with new ideas. This approach caters to trufans but alienates new readers and therefore limits the audience.

Partly for that reason, I was never that interested in joining my properties into a single universe. Up to this point, Guilded Age had had no Marvel-style offhand references to other works of mine, not even blink-and-you’ll-miss-it name-checks or cameos. We sort of break that rule starting here, but also sort of don’t: this is not quite the same Shanna as appeared in Fans. More on that tomorrow.

(Changed the alt text because, TBH, the attitude that informed the original seems pretty dated to me now.)