#dragomon

CW for hospitals and illnesses. It's slight but still

And the sliced up version for easy reading

Came out sliiiiiightly different than intended. It's a roll with the punches kind of comic, so it is what it is. I used to have some fun page set ups, and it was nice to try something funky with the word balloons.

"Octomon is an obsessive collector."

Another reason why I hc this was Vulcanusmon's Adult/Champion form.*

Besides him being, you know, based on an octopus.

Which I totally didn't get for the longest time. Even though the octopus is literally my favorite animal. When I did finally get it, it made me love him EVEN MORE.

*(I also hc that he warp evolved and skipped the Dagomon stage. Partly for superficial reasons - because, despite being awesome since he's a Lovecraft reference, Dagomon is... rather unattractive. But also because a Dagomon plays a big role in his backstory in my hc, and it would be confusing for Vulc to be a Dagomon too.)

(btw Dagomon is a reference to an ocean god Lovecraft wrote about named Dagon [who was actually worshipped by some cultures irl], even though Dagomon's design is based on Cthulhu instead. And them localizing his name as Dragomon makes no sense since he's not dragon-like in the least, which is why I always call him Dagomon!

DigiMonday - DAGOMON (aka Dragomon)

(Perfect Level/Virus Attribute/Aquatic beast Man Type)

As anyone with even the slightest familiarity with the work of famed American horror writer and noted air conditioner fearer H.P Lovecraft will no doubt notice, Dagomon's design is based heavily on that of easily Lovecraft's most famous creation, Cthulhu. First described in 1928 in the short story "The Call of Cthulhu" (although interestingly the big man himself never actually makes an in-person appearance in his debut story) and apparently intended to be pronounced "koh-luhh-looh", Cthulhu is an enormous, unfathomably old being described as being vaguely humanoid in shape but with scaly green skin and features of both an octopus and a dragon. Like the other "Great Old Ones" who appeared both in Lovecraft's other works and in many later works by other authors inspired by Lovecraft in the form of "The Cthulhu Mythos", Cthulhu was said to have originated in distant space but have been lying in a deep sleep on earth (in his case on an undocumented island surrounded by a twisted, geometrically impossible city called R'lyeh,) with the story ending with the revelation that everyone's favourite mollusc-headed monster man had been awoken and was now lurking somewhere in the eastern pacific ocean while his legions of worshipers prepare to hunt the story's point-of-view character down.

(A statue of Cthulhu as drawn by Lovecraft, image source here. What a specimen...)

While Dagomon's design is clearly heavily Cthulhu-inspired, it also features a few interesting little pieces of religious imagery; the golden bands around its right leg (or, like, right leg-shaped mass of tentacles) appear to be holy rings (little trinkets that appear on a variety of Digis associated with goodness and holiness, and which in the lore(tm) are apparently indicative that a Digimon carries "holy data",) while the necklace of beads around its neck (described as a rosary in its official description) appears to be based on a mala, a type of prayer beads used as tools of worship in certain Hindu Buddhist, Sikh, Jain, Muslim and Christian rituals. Dagomon's official description calls it an "undersea priest", and its title combined with the religious imagery in its design may link to consistent idea in the Cthulhu Mythos that many of the Great Old Ones are worship for their terrible power. The generous sprinkling of worship-related imagery in Dagomon's design may also be an allusion to the origin of its name; first alluded to in a 1919 short story of the same name (pre-dating Call of Cthulhu) and later being fleshed out in 1936's The Shadow over Innsmouth, (Lovecraft's first published book,) Dagon (or Father Dagon, if you're one of his many fishy followers) is another ancient aquatic being and debatably another Great Old One worshipped by a species of fish-like humanoids called The Deep Ones, alongside Cthulhu and a third ancient being, Mother Hydra.

(A doodle from the Digital Monster Artbook Ver. Pendulum of a Dagomon attending to its undersea religious duties (possibly referencing the real-world Abhayamuda pose) while also threatening to clobber a disrespectful Octomon.)

Dagomon debuted in 1998 in the second version of the Digimon Pendulum VPet, "Deep Savers" (which featured various marine-themed Digimon.) Since then its appeared in several pieces of Digimon media (usually depicted as an extremely powerful antagonist,) but in my mind the most interesting Dagomon appearance to date is in the episodic horror-themed anime series Digimon Ghost Game (think Scooby Doo but with Digimon,) where the episode "The Call" takes heavy inspiration from both The Call of Cthulhu and The Shadow over Innsmouth (featuring a Dagomon luring humans towards the ocean and turning them into Deep One-style fish people to worship it.) Perhaps the strangest Dagomon appearance was a total nonsequiter of an appearence in the very much non-episodic Digimon Adventure 02's "The Call of Dagomon", which also referenced The Shadows over Innsmouth and spent the entire episode building up to shot of a Dagomon rising from the ocean in the last few minutes of the episode...only to never address the events of the episode again, apparently as the result of an arc that would have heavily featured Dagomon being cancelled. Oops.

Favourite Dagomon Art: This image from the Digital Monster Artbook Ver. Pendulum, showing a Dagomon and a MarineDevimon feuding over who gets to be the definitive horror of the deep while an Octomon and a Gesomon goad them on.

I've started a series of drawings where I turn Digimon into puppet/plush versions of themselves similar to ExTyrannomon. Definitely will be drawing more of these in the future so stay tuned.

The first one of the ultimate/perfect is Anomalocarimon. Anomalocaris is one of my favorite extinct animals and I'm absolutely delighted that both Digimon and Pokemon based a monster off of it. It also definitely takes after a sea scorpion with it's scorpion-like tail. It was even born from scientific data about extinct species. I think this is a great Digimon that deserved more attention. Anomalocarimon caused a bit of a translation kerfuffle when it was given the English name Scorpiomon (because American kids are too dumb to know what an Anomalocaris is I guess). Well there's also another unrelated Digimon called Scorpiomon so the English dub was forced to change its name to SkullScorpiomon. Yes, this has caused confusion before. Anomalocarimon also has an x-antibody form that looks like it was standing next to a bunch of exploding spray paint cans.

Anomalocarimon

Anomalocarimon X

Next is Dagomon, who was given the English name Dragomon. It's a minor change but kind of dumb because Dagomon comes from the Cthulhu mythos character Father Dagon and has nothing to do with dragons. Despite being named after Father Dagon, Dagomon is clearly Cthulhu as a Digimon. It's also treated as such in the animes. in Digimon Adventure 02 it rules over deep ones in an extradimensional spaces called the Dark Ocean and is implied to be more of a Lovecraftian horror than a Digimon. In Digimon Ghost Game it starts turning people into deep ones and is powerful enough to overwhelm a higher-level Digimon. I know it also shows up in Xros Wars, but I didn't watch that. It wears Buddhist prayer beads. In a heavily Buddhist country like Japan, a monster dressed like a Buddhist is probably the equivalent of historically-Catholic countries having vampire priests. I dig this one and while I say that a lot of Digimon could use more attention, I think Dagomon only showing up a little bit and being overwhelmingly powerful and mysterious is very appropriate for a Lovecraftian Digimon.

Related to Dagomon is Hangyomon, called Divermon in English. It's very much based on sea monsters like th Creature from the Black Lagoon, but with scuba gear. I think it's a neat Digimon. Notably, Hangyomon's most prominent appearance in the anime wasn't actually them. It was in the same episode as Dagomon and the Dark Ocean where at the end it's revealed that the creatures that presented themselves as Hangyomon were actually disguised deep ones serving Dagomon.

Next is Gusokumon and listen, I'm a simple nerd, I see a giant shrimp that shoots fish-shaped torpedos and I like it. It's also based on real-life biological phenomena relates to the deep ocean. Like many real deep-sea animals it lives life on show mode, being able to live an extremely long time while not getting to eat very often. It feeds on injured Digimon that sink to the bottom of the ocean, which sounds a lot like deep-sea scavengers and whale falls (Whamon falls?)

Next is MarineChimairamon, an aquatic chimera. Yes, it's spelles chimaira instead of chimera. When I looked it to to find out if that's an alternate translation from the original Greek I found out that "chimaira" is the name of a heavy metal band from Ohio. So congrats guys, you accidentally have a Digimon named after you. Two actually, because there is also a Chimairamon (English: Kimeramon) and the two are very similar concepts. They're artificial Digimon made out of a combination of body parts of multiple other Digimon. OC, do not steal. I actually like MarineChimairamon more that the original. I can see Coelamon's helmet, Ikkakumon's head and tusks, Octomon's horns, One arm from Ebidramon and the other from Hangyomon, and tentacles from Gesomon.

Finally at this level is MarineDevimon. Just like how MarineChimairamon is the aquatic version of Chimairamon, there is a land-based Devimon. While Devimon is an evil genius, MarineDevimon is consumed by hate and can destroy its enemies with raw power. I think it's a great design for an evil aquatic Digimon

The apex of Digimon evolution is the mega/ultimate level and there are indeed megas lurking in the depths of the Net Ocean. One of the many horrors down there is Cthyllamon. This very new Digimon is an evil version of MarineAngemon. It's just as tiny and like MarineAngemon, it preferes to not fight. While MarineAngemon uses the power of live to drain its foes of their fighting spirit, Cthyllamon terrifies enemies into diving up and brainwashes lower-level Digimon into serving it. Cthylla is a less-well known member of the Cthulhu mythos, a daughter of Cthulhu who looks like a winged octopus and serves as a back up body for big C if he is ever killed. Cthyllamon doesn't really have anything to do with that. I think it's a great counterpart to MarineAngemon and a delightful little villain

KingWhamon is a bigger version of Whamon and that's about all we know about it. Generally the measure for whetehr or not a Digimon is official is if it has an entry in the Digimon Reference Book and KingWhamon doesn't. The Reference Book is where you get the lore of what that Digimon is and does, so we don't have that for KingWhamon. Despite not appearing in the Reference Book, KingWhamon has an anime appearance in Xros Wars and a card in the card game, which sounds pretty official to me. It's a gigantic whale with an island growing on its head. Te idea of a sea creature so vast that it can be mistaken for an island is common in the legends of seafaring cultures around the world. It's a fine Digimon, I just wish we had more to go off of.

Next is Xiangpengmon and while it looks like a bird dragon, it is aquatic. It's based on the peng, a Chinese legendary creature that can turn from a bird to a fish. This is seen in its evolutionary line, starting as the bird Xiquemon, evolving to the fish Huankunmon, and finally ending as a dragon. Chinese dragons were often depicted as living in the sea and being capable of flight. I think Xiangpengmon is a great Digimon. It is one of 6 species that debuted in the China-exclusive mobile game Digimon New Century and all of them are amazing.

If there can be said to be an aquatic Digimon that's the most powerful, it would have to be Leviamon. Named after the mythical leviathan, Leviamon is not only a big red crocodile, it's one of the Seven Great Demon Lords. They are the epitome of evil in the Digital World and some of the most powerful Digimon ever. Each Demon Lord bears the power of one of the seven deadly sins and Leviamon holds the power of envy. Despite being ungodly powerful, Leviamon envies those it sees as better than itself and lashes out against them. How big is Leviamon? It's big enough that it could swallow the Digital World in one gulp. It's definitely for the better that it spends most of its time asleep in the depths of the sea. The lore says that the limits of Digimon power are being decoded and Leviamon has none. Its existence is also the foundation of evil in the Digital World. So it's a being with no limits that is the origin of all evil. Sounds less like a Digimon and more like some unfathomable embodiment of evil that happens to be masquerading as a Digimon. I think that's super cool and while Leviamon is definitely the least visually interesting of the Demon Lords, it's still one of the coolest. Leviamon also has an x-antibody variant and oh boy. The aquatic Digimon have actually lucked out when it comes to having decent x-antibody variants and you may wonder why I call x-antibodies as a whole overdesigned and ugly. This, THIS, is what I mean when I say x-antibody variants are overdesigned. There are so many lines on this thing that it can be hard to tell what I'm looking at. And it's not even the worst x-antibody form, not even close. The seal of envy hovering over it like a halo is cool, but all the Demon Lords get their seals incorporated into the x-antibody designs so it's not even a unique idea. There is just no salvaging this x-antibody design.

Leviamon

Leviamon X