O.K. I'll admit that I very much owe this image to Stephen King: while I was re-reading his series The Dark Tower, I went for a drive through the countryside and at this intersection of back-roads the elements just screamed "Mid World!"  The corn, rather scraggly because of the drought, the wind turbines, and the bright sun in a fluffy-clouded sky all just made me think of Roland and his gunslingers.  I don't think he'd bat an eye at this landscape.  So when I had gotten through which-ever volume that was that I had been reading (Song of Susannah, maybe) I conceived of creating a gunslinging character based loosely on the description King makes of Roland of Gilead.  My guy, Sai Reardon if it please ya', is maybe a little cleaner than King's Roland, but he hasn't been chasing the Man in Black over the desert, either.  Hell, even the string of dead bodies is, now that I think on it, right out of The Gunslinger.  Damn!