"I work at the graveyard. It's a family business passed down to me. I seem to be the last in my line, however. But I don't plan to stop. I forget to stop and just keep going. Work to be done. Always something to do. I've been working here for hundreds of years. Burying more and more. It's a family business."
— The Gravedigger
Graveyard Quest is a webcomic series written by KC Green (who also wrote the webcomic Gunshow). It tells the story of a lonely gravedigger who has no one for company except his mother's bones and his father's ghost who constantly berates him. His father steals the bones and the Gravedigger must go on a journey through the afterlife to get them back.
The series ended in August 2014.You can find all of the comics in the series here [1]
This webcomic provides ex amples of:
- Afterlife Express: The train sending souls to Hell.
- Ambiguously Human: the Gravedigger definitely qualifies as this with his paper white skin, large solid black eyes and the fact he mentions he's been working there for hundreds of years. He looks noticeably different from the explicitly human characters that appear later in the story, but this is never addressed.
- this applies to the Gravedigger's father as well.
- Abusive Parents: How the Gravedigger's father is introduced.
- Artistic License – Engineering: In this universe, changing the destination of a train simply involves flipping a switch from "stay left" to "stay right." Naturally, this is lampshaded [2] when a character says "This is how trains work!"
- Book Ends: The comic begins and ends with the Gravedigger burying bodies.
- Calling the Old Man Out: When the gravedigger meets his father.
- Companion Cube: The Gravedigger's mother's bones serve as this for the main character.
- Creepy Mortician: The gravedigger.
- Deceased Parents Are the Best: Played straight with the Gravedigger's mother. She's dead before the story begins and only exists in the story as a pile of bones, but you hear nothing but good things about her. Double Subverted with the Gravedigger's father who is dead, but treats his son like shit as a ghost, who later turns out to be a decent guy
- Dem Bones: The Gravedigger is attacked by undead skeletons early in the comic
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Applies to most of the main characters including the gravedigging protagonist, his friend the Mole and his father.
- Family Business: Working at the graveyard is this to the main character.
- Hell Seeker
- Manly Tears: The Gravedigger and his father shed some when they both realize how much they miss Gravedigger's mother
- Mummies at the Dinner Table: The Gravedrigger treat his mother's bones as if she is still alive.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The Gravedigger stops hijackers from taking over the train and forcing it to go to Heaven because going there without God's permission would cause them all to cease to exist. After the danger is gone, the occupants realize that they're not exactly sure what actually would have happened if they went to heaven anyway and start yelling at the Gravedigger for not letting them go to Heaven.
- Heartbroken Badass: The Gravedigger's father
- Jade-Colored Glasses: Again, the Gravedigger's father
- Shovel Strike: The gravedigger uses a shovel as his weapon.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: a lot of the Gravedigger's frustration comes from this.
