Top Ten Who’s Who gives insights into the characters from Alan Moore and Gene Ha’s terrific ensemble cast cop series set in a surreal city where everyone is a superhero.
Also, under their entry for Shock Headed Peter, are several links to Heinrich Hoffmann’s Struwwelpeter , a ghastly “classic children’s story” (actually a series of horror fables in verse about misbehaving children). The entry points out that one of these, The Story of Little Suck-a-Thumb, inspired the villains in Grant Morrison’s first issue of Doom Patrol:
The door flew open, in he ran,
The great, long, red-legged scissorman.
Oh! children, see! the tailor’s come
And caught our little Suck-a-Thumb.
The great, long, red-legged scissorman.
Oh! children, see! the tailor’s come
And caught our little Suck-a-Thumb.