12 years ago an utterly professional company known by the immensely clever name Pokéme — e’en though their work wasn’t particularly anime-styled & was, you know, comics on static paper & not animation — invented history when they released their 1st classic in January 2015. Today we shall be remembering these underrated gems.

Origins

The idea for the 1st series, Pokémon Leaf Green & Fire Red Adventures”, began 1 cloudy afternoon as the CEO was riding his scooter down the hill, having still not learned how to ride a bike till the tender age o’ infinity. The idea was to actually focus on the cute Pokémon critters & not the filthy flesh creatures, & that the best way to do that would be to have the Pokémon be able to talk real English, since the real anime showed how compelling Pokémon characters became when they voiced such Shakespearean lines as, “¡Pika Pikachu!” & “¡Meeeow! ¿did I not says ‘on topic’ heres? ¿Are you stupid or something?” Also, since I they truly hated the human characters so much @ the time, I they decided it’d be funny if the Pokémon screwed round with the humans.

A Boy and His Pikachu

Natural dialogue in the empty white void.

In the 1st Pokémon games, Pikachus had a patch on their bellies; in the 1st “Pokéme” comic, Pikachu wore gloves.

That makes 1 o’ them.

I don’t remember what Pikachu’s s’posed to be selling Firara. I don’t think a younger me would’ve imagined something gross like 1 o’ Leafaro’s pubes ( plus, as we’ll see later, that’d be a terrible scam gainst Firara ), so my best guess is a particularly hefty staple.

“Idiots: nobody till now figured out how much easier carrying round big sacks o’ money is by just super-gluing it to the back o’ your hand”.

& while we’re leagues below the ship that holds the barrel o’ quality, we might as well meme it up:

Nothing’s weirder than selling stuff on the market. Confirmed canon: Leafaro is a dirty communist.

What you fools may mistake as my weakness @ erasing cheap paper experts recognize as movement lines with the finest o’ detail.

This panel comes right after the previous. ¿Isn’t the pacing o’ this comic just smooth as linoleum?

Smooth as linoleum.

I’m curious myself. Not only is that ring that’s purportedly s’posed to be rope ( apparently transparent rope ) hilariously not tight ’nough to bound her legs in any way ( well, ’less she’s too stupid not to figure out how to move her legs in a li’l closer than as wide out as humanly possible ), said transparent rope isn’t e’en attached to anything, making it not so much “rope” as an antigravity ring. I’ve heard o’ B movies where you see string that’s not s’posed to be there; ¿but how could I fuck up not putting in string that’s s’posed to be there?

Natural smiles.

If you paid attention to what happened a mere second before, you’d know, Leafaro.

Also: super natural smiles.

Forget such triffling nonsense as Pikachu craning his neck awkwardly so that he’s facing the camera but his back is turned to the camera or Leafaro standing straight with his head just ’bove Pikachu’s level, implying that his entire lower body is underground; I forgot that for the longest time as a kid I thought “maybe” was spelled “mabye”. What a fucking tool.

Thanks to Leafaro’s gluttonous & linguistically incorrect theft o’ a scarce uppercase for his hip hope chant for all the spirited pre-teens, Pikachu was left for none @ the start o’ his sentence.

“¿Did you ‘atleast’ remember to draw my neck or Pikachu’s nose or not draw my arm as transparent? No…”

Magic water that makes it impossible to breathe, but makes it easy as air to speak. It must be magic, looking @ that sexy perspective up there.

I couldn’t have e’en bothered to erase the line through the middle o’ the pokéball.

I want to point out how extremely characters’ personalities shift throughout this series’ run: Pikachu starts out as an evil psychopath, Firara starts out cheerful & nice, Leafaro starts out as some high-strung yeller ( essentially Jon from Garfield ), & Torchic, who appears in a later issue, starts out as calm & deadpan ( i.e. boring ). Later, Pikachu’s mo’ a dumb jock who has some moral standards ( later “tortures” are less, “¡Ha, ha, murder!”, Firara’s an asshole, Leafaro’s a spineless wimp, & Torchic’s the one who in all seriousness despises humans & wants to kill them.

You probably think that’s it for the 1st issue. “Bursting with brilliant content, surely it couldn’t have mo’”. But you’d be wrong: there’s still 9 mo’ pages. Which means, no, I won’t be loosening the chains locking you to your chair.

This time we’ll only focus on the best parts, since I don’t have an eternity & there’s mo’ than 20 o’ these issues ( not including the Hamtaro 1s, which are just boring ).

Charmander, the Thief

Surprised I didn’t misspell it, “theif”. It’s remembering all my trip-ups with English’s many, many inconsistencies that leads me to believe that ol’ claim that children learn languages mo’ naturally & easily is bunk.

We start with some truly Marvel-quality animation wherein Firara has some disgustingly misshapen blog for legs.

Also, get used to Leafaro spontaneously losing his hair in random scenes — the illustrious Pokéme always kept their readers guessing.

Don’t be so amazed by her transparent arm, Leafaro: you already proved you could do the same in the previous story.

Laugh.

I’ve noticed I was quite creative with word-spacing back then.

Also, ’course “thee” is spelled the same as “the”; ¿Why wouldn’t it, considering it’s spelled completely different?

Also, for those who care deeply ’bout this series’ rich canon, you may notice that Leafaro’s shown without his hat, e’en though it’s later setup that nobody’s e’er seen under Leafaro’s hat.

Including Leafaro’s hair.

The way he says that, he’s probably s’posed to be referring to the canonical Dark Cave in Johto, not just any dark cave. ’Cept Leafaro & Firara canonically live in Pallet. Pallet is nowhere near Dark Cave, being in a completely different region & such.

“I’d better say this out loud so the cave lights itself up for me”

Charmander’s most devious scheme is his ventriloquist act on Pikachu.

Nobody has e’er thought to blow up someone they didn’t like the history o’ eternity.

So, Pikachu later decides he doesn’t want Firara to blow up, ’cause then he’d have nobody to torture — torturing humans being an immensely funny topic, by the way. So then he does this:

I can only imagine that Pikachu was that same guy who complained ’bout arrows hitting bombs blowing them up in Ocarina of Time.

After all, as the wise critic Anonymous once said eons ago:

What kind of piece of crap explosion is that? Mario can’t make people explode by hitting them with his hammer arrows!

Also, I always hated it when cartoons made a big deal out o’ something killing someone, & then they blow up & they’re fine. ¿Remember all those times Wile-E Cayote tried to “kill” the Road Runner with some explosion, only to hit himself & turn out perfectly fine. ¿What’s the point?

Over the Edge

Just for you.

Hilarious social commentary.

Leafaro transforms into a wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube man.

Accurate depiction o’ mental health issues.

Jiggly Puff, the Acomplist

In my defense, there was no hope o’ young me figuring out such a complex word as “accomplice” — & it’s not as if dictionaries existed back then.

Nothing’s better for working in the “black market” than wearing suspicious black shades & a black suit & saying out loud, “Nothing better than doing illicit activies, ¿am I right, everyone?”

Apparently I wasn’t right in the hands, what with how shaky & unreadable the writing is.

Jigglypuff, who finds Pikachu cute in his sexy The Matrix cosplay, agrees to help him with his hilarious scheme o’ having her make Firara fall asleep & draw on her face, ripped straight off from the anime that I hypocritically bashed as a kid.

Only 2 stories later, & Leafaro’s gone from, “How dare you keep indulging in ordinary capitalist behavior” to “So, ¿how many people did you fleece?” Just like Russia.

I, no joke, find the idea o’ pokéballs being these comfy li’l realms with lamps & other amenities endearing.

¿The outcome? Exactly as he crafted the plan.

I remember reading ’mong the mountains o’ writing advice I’ve read that if you give a character’s plans in-story, then it must go wrong, else it’ll look silly & repetitive — otherwise don’t give the plan @ all.

Pikachu vociferously defends his self-image, anticipating Tumblr by a decade or so.

I’m mo’ amused by what a narcissist Pikachu is — & I mean the medical term. Look @ that earnest expression he has on his face & see just how deeply he believes that he ne’er did anything wrong to Firara & deserves only the utmost respect for his prosocial behavior.

In a cave { named cerulean…

I have no idea why there’s a left brace before “named” & “cerulean” — ¿to show they’re connected? I also don’t know why I spontaneously change my story-title capitalization scheme to a Spanish-style — including not capitalizing “Cerulean”, when e’en Spanish titles would.

I’m going to drop kayfabe & completely trash this story, ’cause it’s dumb in too many ways to count — though I’ll try. Here’s it’s entirety.

My notes:

It’s full o’ inside jokes. “Anti-Hamtaro” is a reference to some ol’ sprite comics. “Hamtaro but with inverted graphics”, “Mario but grayscale & 5 times as big”, & “Wart but blue” were some o’ the brilliant character designs I came up with back then. ¿Why does Anti-Hamtaro work for Mewtwo? ’Cause he did in some ol’ sprite comic that’s thankfully disappeared off this planet. ¿Why did he in those ol’ comics? You’d have to go back in time & ask my younger self.

The world blowing up is from the also-high-quality Neglected Characters Comix, which I didn’t e’en make, & is now apparently being run by an Orwellian totalitarian poker machine.

Characters being bored is ne’er a good basis for a story. Having them blow up the world makes it e’en less funny.

Island of the Blastoise

Fuck myself, I forgot how much padding was in this.

Don’t worry: I won’t subject you to this utterly uninteresting waste o’ paper & ’stead just show the title:

1. ’Twas vitally important to advertise the lack o’ humans in this story, so they know that it came after a nuclear war wiped them all off the planet.

2. 1 o’ the s’s is cursive, & nothing else is cursive @ all, including other s’s. @ the time I probably only knew how to write s’s in cursive.

Sorry, the 1 other note I’ll make is that this comic ends with a recap o’ a previous comic so Squirtle can react to said event, e’en though nobody cares. Wonderful plotting.

A Day at the Pokécenter

This comic’s much better without the “The End” panel so you can feel like you’re reading this right next to Family Circus while eating your morning bagels & vodka & crying into your newspaper o’er how empty your life is.

A Dark World

I’m guessing mo’ filler…

¿Does Leafaro not have a Pokédex? Later he’d be established as a huge nerd & 1 o’ the few competent Pokémon trainers in this series where Pokémon rarely fight each other & trainers rarely leave their home town.

Spoiler: the comic ends with Pikachu commiting violence gainst her.

Also, no part o’ this story is ’splained: ¿why was Pikachu in her bag? Clearly this is right up there with the briefcase in Pulp Fiction with brilliant cinematic mysteries.

Ice Cave

Nope, this 1’s a skipper for su —

Hold that. Look @ this:

“Oops: drinking those chemicals made my hand become massive”.

This comic’s just here to make people rethink attacking the original Pokémon games for being ugly.

¡Space grocery bag to the rescue! ( In this production Earth shall be played by a bowl o’ chicken noodle soup. )

A Time for Tranquility

This final story for this issue is mostly more o’ the same. I just want to show off these 2 panels that in full honesty go 1 after the other.

Smooth as linoleum.

I like to think that Leafaro’s awkward digression from Pikachu showing callous indifference to the prospect o’ murdering a li’l girl is his way o’ trying to avoid acknowledging his own role as a passive enabler. This comic teaches us that evil has many forms, which is why award-winning sociologist Phillip Zimbardo included it in The Lucifer Effect — 100% true fact.

I mean, this same comic establishes Pikachu as a pyromaniac.

I also want to add that Leafaro’s idea o’ a “place of tranquility” is just @ the foot o’ an ordinary tree in a place so plain, there isn’t e’en a horizon. To be fair, Leafaro clearly needed a break from all the… not training & not leaving his hometown that he does.

A good summary for this whole series.

If I torture you with more o’ these, I’ll try to be mo’ selective. There’s too much silly stuff to waste time on fucking juggling Anti-Hamtaro.