Preview of Basilisk, my personal favorite of my risograph comics, and the project all my other recent medieval-inspired art descends from.
Styled after medieval illuminated manuscripts and printed using a custom color palette requiring 5 risograph inks (including metallic gold), Basilisk asks the question: what would drive a teenage girl to create a monster?
Physical copies available here (also digital here). To brag for a moment--this is my masterwork of riso printing and is even more impressive in person.
The Tarasque dwells in the waters of the Rhone river near the town of Tarascon, where it devours travelers and destroys dikes and dams to flood the Camargue. Saint Martha chained it, and the people of Tarascon killed it.
The ruins of the amphitheaters of Metz were infested by hundreds of snakes. The largest of them, the Graoully, had a venomous breath, a mouth bigger than its body and devoured men. Saint Clement chased it away into the Seille River.
King of serpents, the Basilisk takes many forms throughout history and appears in many tales. One of them takes place at the Gate of Saint-Eloi in Bordeaux, known today for its Big Bell, where a well was occupied by a Basilisk. It petrified with its gaze anyone who went there to fetch water. It was defeated by a man returning from the Egyptian crusade, who petrified the beast with its own gaze using a mirail (mirror).
The Cocatrix is born from a rooster's egg incubated by a toad. The egg has magical properties but must not be broken. People who cross its gaze die immediatly.
Made of wicker and covered in flowers, the Grand Bailla wanders the streets of Reims three days a year and feeds on gold and sweets. It was banished by Archbishop Charles Maurice le Tellier.
The Grand'Goule haunts the marshes of Poitou, the waters of the Clain and the flooded cellars of the abbey of Sainte Croix. It feeds on nuns and casse-museaux (snout-breakers, cakes). Saint Radegonde chased it away with holy water.
In the rivers of the Jura and the Alps there is a group of diverse dragons, the Vouivres. They are generally flying serpents covered in fire and guardians of treasures. Many have for a single eye a gigantic carbuncle with extraordinary powers, desired by those in search of wealth and power.
Hidden in the caves and cliffs of la Pointe du Roux near La Rochelle, the Rô Beast traps and devours travelers in the coastal marshes. It was impaled by seven heroic pagans from the seas.
Mythical dragon of the Basque Country, Herensuge gave birth to the Sun and the Moon, swallowed all of Creation in ten days then regurgitated it in flames. Now asleep in the mountains, it sucks up flocks and shepherds in his sleep. When it wakes up, it will destroy the world in flames and blood. (illustration)
Durandal is the mythical sword that Charlemagne gave to the knight Roland. Some claim that it was inherited from Hector, the warrior of the Trojan War. At war with the Saracens in the Pyrenées, Roland wanted to break the sword so that it would not fall into the hands of the enemy but Durandal split the mountain. So he threw the sword, which went to stick miles away, in the rock of the town of Rocamadour.
The belief in the Tooth Fairy is widespread in several countries in Europe, and is sometimes amalgamated with La Petite Souris (little mouse). It exchanges baby teeth for money. No one knows what it does with all these teeth.
The Camecruse is a bogeyman that haunts the moors and marshes of Gascony. It is agile, can jump and hide in the night to better devour lost children. No one knows exactly how it feeds.
The caves under the hill of the town of Hastingues are home to Lou Carcolh, a monstrous snail, long, slimy and hairy. Its shell is as big as a house. With the help of its tentacles, it grips people to devour them.
The Questing Beast is hunted by kings and heroes in Arthurian legends. It symbolizes evil, incest, violence and chaos, and takes it name from the loud noises that come out of its stomach, similar to the barking of dozens of dogs.
The fairy Mélusine, cursed princess of Albania, was condemned to change into a snake below the waist every Saturday. She married Raymondin de Lusignan with whom they had 10 prodigious children. But Raymondin broke his promise never to see Mélusine on Saturday : he surprised her in her monstrous form, and she left her family forever.
aforementioned site did encourage me to remake some basilisk anatomy references to be more updated to how i imagine them now. and also, in turn made me rethink slightly how their whole pouch deal works and actually draw it since i hadn't yet LOL.
as i've mentioned before basilisk males have a pouch on each side for rearing their young; this is a trait universal to dactylopodinae, and a sort of "pseudo-ovovivipary"! a male's pouch is much more reduced until they've bred, after which the skin there will become more elastic and pronounced in time for when the female lays. after laying her egg, it is placed in the male's pouch(es) and during each summer she usually lays 2 eggs with a 1 month interval. the egg has a very delayed hatching time than birds, and only hatches by the time the next spring arrives. as u can see the gaga stays in the pouch for 2-3 months before it starts to grow a bit uncomfy in there and it climbs onto the father's back.
the first year is the quickest phase of a basilisk's growth rate, and they become able to walk on their own regularly at around 5-6 months (prior to that they CAN walk at 3ish, but its more like, pathetic hobbling where they often fall on their face), but at around 1 year the growth slows down substantially. i imagine that they remain covered in the silly down (the colour i think changes from pure white to more brownish after the first year though) up until around 9-10 years where they finally start to grow into their own juvenile plumage and their individual features become more pronounced.
puberty for basilisk usually occurs at a later age on average than humans (in their later teens) and also occurs more "all at once". as in, it tends to coincide with their first fully adult plumage moult (you can imagine how terribly hormonal their first spring season is...). but even then socially i imagine you're only considered a true adult after a few years post your first true "hormonal season", and body size does not completely stop growing until their 20s.
keep in mind though that males being the gaga caregiver can and is probably culturally influenced in some basilisk cultures and such and can vary in execution. for example while some cultures might encourage the male to be the sole person having "gaga climb on u" duty during their infancy, some others might encourage a more even distribution of "gaga climbing time" between the male and the female. Etc
