Steve Ahlquist’s The Electric Elephant is based on the children’s book The Wonderful Electric Elephant by Frances T. Montgomery, published in 1903. Neither the book nor Montgomery have a wikipedia entry so it’s apparently a pretty obscure volume. Montgomery’s original is fun in a blood thirsty, old timey racist sort of way. Ahlquist’s tale follows the same basic map as Montgomery’s but the new version drops the racism while expanding on and adding complexity to the original.

The book originally had illustrations by Cassius Coolidge. A gallery of those illustrations can be found here.

Also by Ahlquist on Jukepop.com are:
Lizzie the Girl Knight
Wonder Heroes 4.0