Having designed everything from sloops bearing terrible conspiracies, to shipwrecked caravels with exotic figureheads, to shabby fishing boats for the pirates in my work-in-progress graphic novel, Pirates of New York, I still felt I was missing something. My secret pirate fleet just wasn’t complete without a steampunk submarine disguised as a sea monster!

This ferocious-looking submarine plays an important part in the story, as a mode of transport, a hidden weapon, and as a terrifying illusion to scare away nosy intruders from a top-secret base. Intruders such as circus performer siblings Lon and Queenie, who are unfortunate enough to run afoul of the “monster” while trying to investigate their father’s pirate past.

In designing my own vision of a demonic, “futuristic” submarine in 1909, I fused elements of the fantastical imaginings of my favorite Science Fiction authors like Jules Verne with the mechanics of genuine early submarine designs like David Bushnell’s charming 18th-century “Turtle” and the elegant Nautilus built by Robert Fulton in 1800.

The result is a mechanical monstrosity, cloaked in the features of nightmarish deep sea creatures and powered by cutting edge turn-of-the-century steam and electrical technology.

I think she’s quite a charmer.