Swiss Skeli got his start as the art project of the artist Renée Magaña (known as Fleshy, Skeletons call the living Fleshys). At the present time, there is an ongoing story of the adventures of Swiss Skeli on Instagram (@the_calavera_club) which has been publishing adventures three times a week since 2021.

Swiss Skeli was born in Tzintzuntzan on November 2, 1874, Día de Muertos (the Day of the Dead), in the large cemetery of Cucuchucho in the municipality of Tzintzunzan, Michoacan, Mexico.

Swiss Skeli’s world is very much influenced by the Victorian age into which he entered our world. Historically, the Victorian era began in 1837 with the coronation of Queen Victoria and ended with her death in 1901. The Victorian era is sometimes expanded to include the years both before and after these dates, roughly from the Napoleonic Wars beginning in 1803 until the outbreak of the first World War in 1914.

In England Queen Victoria cultivated a real death cult after her husband Albert, Prince Consort died. She chose to only wear black for the rest of her life and never married again. She was the reason, or inspiration for the Victorian cult of mourning and its associated rituals. There was a strict etiquette for mourning, whole households of the deceased had to dress in black, black mourning jewelry came up, relics with keepsakes from the deceased were put up in the house. Arthur Conan Doyle lived during this time; Sherlock Holmes is fully Victorian. Swiss Skeli feels a bit like Sherlock sometimes, investigating the brighter side of Death.

Fast forward to some time in the 20th century: Swiss Skeli landed on one of his many adventures across the sea in the city of Berne, Switzerland, from where he also gets his nickname “Swiss” Skeli. It is now 150 years after Swiss Skeli was born that he decides to hire a Fleshy for the purpose of documenting his life and adventures. Swiss Skeli finds an artist Fleshy named Renée Magaña, who has never been afraid of skeletons and found it perfectly normal when Swiss Skeli knocked on her studio door one night…

Swiss Skeli says welcome to his grand adventures! Join him.