Colma Research Expedition
Shaenon: This storyline is set in my own Bay Area stomping grounds, so I’ve done my best to portray the area with absolute accuracy, including zombies with mustaches. This necessitated a fact-finding mission to Colma with my husband Andrew and Skin Horse colorist and book designer Pancha Diaz.
First, though, Andrew and I collected some backup visual reference at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, one of the most spectacular cemeteries in the area. Check out the neighborhood of crypts known as “Millionaire’s Row”! That is proper housing for a zombie community.
Then it was off to Woodlawn Memorial Park in Colma, the resting place of Emperor Joseph Norton I. Emperor Norton was a very real person and was buried here with the appropriate pomp and reverence in 1880. However, it took us a long time to locate his grave.
Along the way, we did find confirmation that Colma contains zombie Hords.
But what of the Emperor? More next week…
Channing: These really are some beautiful cemeteries, all told. Maybe I should go die in San Francisco at some point.
Wait – the Emperor of the United States was a guy named “Josh?”
Clearly this was before the Dave Conspiracy gained traction.
edict in 1872:
Whoever after due and proper warning shall be heard to utter the abominable word “Frisco,” which has no linguistic or other warrant, shall be deemed guilty of a High Misdemeanor, and shall pay into the Imperial Treasury as penalty the sum of twenty-five dollars.
Thinking about people who once lived in San Fransisco called Josh, I suddenly thought “The Continental Curmugeon – He rules the United States so you don’t have to”.
That’s Joshua, and we take our Imperial Majesty very seriously in the Bay Area.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Norton
We even invited him to a World Con (Con-Francisco) once. Someone was there claiming to be him.
Just ’cause the rest of the country didn’t have an Emperor of his status. 😉
I understand there’s a drag queen named “Widow Norton” as well.
Of course, he appears in Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman as a major character in one story arc, and is even considered a major religious icon in Discordianism.
Not to mention being the best [CENSORED] absolute monarch the US ever had!
LONG LIVE EMPEROR NORTON! ^_^
As you should!
Never visited the general area, much less the specific, but… he’s one of my favourite historical characters. The having of which alone, probably marks me as history nerd.
I’m glad to see His Imperial Highness has flowers on his grave. Hopefully his legend will live on for centuries. And with any luck your little addition to the mythos will be right there with the rest.
Excellent pictures.
He could be pulling Reg Shoe – tending his own grave, maybe having the occasional Lie Down in it on the anniversary of his death.
I think Subnormality just changed the game on mad fonts.
(TUNE: “God Save The Queen”)
All hail to Norton First!
Others were all the worst!
Norton is best!
Now, with his subjects fed,
He can be fully dead!
He’ll ab-di-cate, he said,
And get some rest!
Is that… a weeping angel?
That was my first reaction, as well.
I don’t see a blue box anywhere in the photos 🙂
Well, until it shows up, don’t blink.
What was the grave offering in the tin can? I may need to know. Between reading Skin Horse and Stand Still. Stay Silent I’m having apocalyptic dreams. Last nights’ involved golf carts.
‘Friskies’ cat food. I actually checked a few cans against it for exact match, but there are several dozen kinds, so some share a color scheme. It does definitely match ‘Ocean Whitefish and Tuna Dinner, Classic Pate’.
These things are burned into my mind because I have to get them far earlier in the morning than I would care to be awake.
spoken like a true cat-slave. But they purr, sowe are content. 🙂
Of course you are, our lovely two-legged minions, nyao. Now be good little humans and embrace the benevolent rule of your furry overlords, nyao! >^_^<
Oooh, new web omic, intriguing story, terrific art! Thanks for the heads-up.
To Manifesta-Be sure to read A Redtails Dream, her first web comic.
Wait, his tombstone actually has his titles on it? I really, really hope archaeologists find it in 800 years time and are horribly confused.
He was originally buried in the Masonic Cemetery in SF itself. Around the 1890s, all the cemeteries in San Francisco were moved to Colma, a few miles down the road. The Masons paid for a simple marker. The current marker was installed by a gay group known as the Imperial Court.
Colma is a neat place if you like graveyards. It is the only city in the world where the dead outnumber the living. There are about 1,800 people living there, and 1.5 million interred in the many cemeteries. We’ve got Joe DiMaggio and Wyatt Earp, among other notables.
Norton seems to have been a truly fascinating chap. The closest equivalent we have here is The Wizard of New Zealand (who, it must be pointed out, is the official Wizard of New Zealand), but we’ve never had an emperor.
We also have Good Prince Geoffie (who wants nothing to do with the whole affair and has desperately wanted it to go away for years), backed by Clan McGillicuddy. The armies backing each clashed many times through the 80s and 90s, in the silliest ways imaginable.
Argh, that’s BONNIE Prince Geoffie, of course. Christmas carols and too many flour bombs to the head may have messed up the memory.
By way of “Carter Beats the Devil” (a great read set in 1920s Oakland), Mountain View Cemetery was the ’20s equivalent of the Marina Safeway (visiting the graves was a respectable activity for unaccompanied youngsters)
I love, love, love the ‘bored angel’ I’m stealing that photo for my desktop. (If you don’t mind.)
I named a fictional aircraft carrier after him.
Technically they’re supposed to be named after presidents, not emperors, but considering that he’s the greatest leader this country has ever had, I decided to make an exception.
Hah. I knew you guys must live in the SF Bay Area because a few strips back you made a joke about hating seagulls. That makes no sense to someone who has never lived there (like I used to.) In San Francisco that was like a neutral topic of conversation, how much we hate flying rats.