SLG Publishing, based in San Jose, California, is using a local landmark as a basis for a new alternate history fantasy comic series. The Winchester Mystery House is a place I’ve always wanted to see. Sarah Winchester, gun heiress, kept building on it for 38 years, including doors and stairways that go nowhere, reportedly to appease the ghosts of those killed by Winchester guns.

“The place has always fascinated me,” said Winchester writer and San Jose native Dan Vado. “I’ve lived around the corner from this place my entire life and it’s like the house has been begging me to write about it. It would be easy to write Mrs. Winchester off as crazy, and to be honest, that’s the direction we were taking with the comic series,” added Vado, “but then I thought about the tragedies in her life and the toll they must have taken on her, so I decided to make the Sarah Winchester in our series a more sympathetic figure.” Vado pointed to the number of patents Sarah Winchester held and the almost futuristic labor-saving elements in the house as proof that, while odd, Sarah Winchester was not crazy or stupid.

Winchester #1 is due out in October. It’s billed as “part historical fiction, part ghost story” and features the ghost of Harry Houdini as the bad guy. Art is by Drew Rausch (Sullengrey and SLG’s Haunted Mansion — how appropriate!). Art samples can be seen at the publisher’s website.