"Len Wein ... had written a few short and evocative paragraphs on the history of Arkham Asylum and it was here I learned of poor Amadeus Arkham, the hospital's founder, whose wife and daughter had been murdered by Martin "Mad Dog" Hawkins. In Wein's précis, Arkham's madness was described as a result of the Stock Market crash of 1929. It occurred to me that having one's wife and daughter slaughtered by a man named "Mad Dog" might have been sufficient cause for a nervous breakdown, so I decided to explore and expand on the life of this throwaway character."