Air Raid Robertson

Author notes

The Undiscovered Self Page 3

Air Raid Robertson

on Jan. 9, 2012

Well, so far my plan to upload a new page every three days is working out. Of course, it is easier now that this story is being shaded with graphite pencils. It takes considerably less time to use these when compared to the markers I usually go with.

The building in the first panel is derived from Danvers State Hospital, which is an infamous mental asylum located in my hometown. Among other gruesome credentials, this place is rumored to be the first hospital to perform frontal lobotomies.

Danvers State was used by H.P. Lovecraft as the basis for the Arkham Sanatorium in his short story "The Thing on the Doorstep". It's also an influence on the Arkham Asylum of the Batman mythos.

After Danvers State was shut down, the building was pretty much just left to rot. And, as one would expect from an abandoned insane asylum, local folk stories of hauntings multiplied with systematic regularity.

The place was bought up in 2005 by some company who wanted to develop the area into condos. Much of it burned down in a mysterious fire in 2007, but the rest was eventually converted into housing. My sister lives in there now. And no, she doesn't believe in ghosts. Or emaciated lunatic ghosts.