Wrizzit

Whimsy & Woe✨·Apr 3, 2026

If you’ve read any of the Grumble and Gasp stories, you may have noticed they take place in a world where the drawings from medieval illuminated manuscripts are entirely real. Killer rabbits. Snails as horses. The whole delightful mess. But here’s a little secret: With the exception of Grumble and Gasp themselves, every single character in the series is taken directly from the realest of really real marginalia illustrations! So I thought it might be fun, each week when I drop a new chapter, to share the original artwork that inspired one of the characters featured in that chapter. But first… Here is the beast we saw in chapter 1. Behold The humble man eating snail! No one knows why medieval monks had such a thing for drawing snails, but whatever the reason, the Mad Monk was no exception. Marginalia is full of examples of giant snails battling everything from knights to a dog riding an archbishop. Apparently the only thing more dangerous than snails in the middle ages was rabbits!