I don't get Blue. He talks a tough game and then sends out a Pokémon whose only move is Teleport. It's like he's not even trying to become Champion.

 Seeing as it's Thanksgiving and all, and birds are dinosaurs are birds, I thought I'd give you your daily dose of nightmare fuel. I have such a weird sense of humor.

But really, one of my paleoart soapboxes is that, while I love fluffy dinos as much as the next avant-garde paleo geek, extant birds actually have a wide range of feathering schemes, and some of them just have weird bald heads and that's okay. I enjoy playing around with saurian integument and trying to see how speculative I can get.

Fun fact: Those fleshy ridges on a turkey's neck are called caruncles. Turkeys can flush blood to their caruncles and make them turn redder, and it's thought that they may aid in helping turkeys recognize individuals based on differing caruncle patterns. 

Just remember, guys, nothing makes the ladies flock to you like bright red wrinkly skin, a large wad of flesh dangling from your nose, and emitting low-pitched noises from that air sac in your chest.

... In all honesty that's probably not the weirdest thing a guy has ever done to attract a girl.

 After that previous comic, my readers felt sorry for the Slowbro too, so I drew this. I like to think Lass took a remedial course on Pokémon husbandry and now they're getting along just swell.

 After I originally posted this one ages ago, one reader came up with a fan theory that Professor Oak overused Repels, went insane, died, and then came back as some sort of malevolent revenant who gives Pokedexes to unsuspecting beginner Trainers.

Naturally, I took that idea and ran with it, which explains a lot of Oak's characterization in Book 2.

I guess I came up with this one because this guy's explanation of Repel reminded me of a medication ad.

 I always felt bad for that poor Slowbro getting yelled at by its trainer in Cerulean City. Slowbro may be dopey, but they have feelings too!

 When you tell me someone will do whatever it takes for something, I just start to worry.

Also, I had fun drawing the Shady Docks. Sounds like a nice part of town.

Also, I've finally gotten around to starting Pokemon Legends: Z-A and oh man I'm having so much fun. New stuff might be kind of scarce because right now I just want to spend all my free time roaming around Lumiose City and pretending to be noncompetitive but then owning at the Z-A Royale. I do have another revised Neopets story at the editor's, though, and I will start posting chapters on this blog once she's done taking a look at it.

 I don't understand how anyone can say this when Pokémon trainers basically get to make a career out of goofing off with monsters. Sounds like most kids' dream job.

Funnily enough, in Pokémon Sun and Moon, there's a group of older, retired trainers who imply that they didn't make enough money off of being a trainer to earn a living, and had to go into other lines of work. And yet you can still make limitless tons of money winning battles and selling valuable items you find on your journey. Maybe those guys just weren't trying hard enough?

... One thing that I like about video games versus the real world is that in the former, you're always compensated fairly for overachieving. Anyone else go around collecting all the resources in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom? No? I may need to rethink my life.

Also, this makes me think about video game design in general and how sometimes I see games where the dev team put so much focus on things like incredible next-gen hyperrealistic graphics, super-advanced AI, and ridiculously detailed programming, that they forgot to actually make the game fun. Like, my definition of a good video game is something you can sit down with for a few hours to unwind at the end of the day, and come away feeling satisfied and refreshed and entertained. Things like graphics and tech specs should take a back seat (or at least the passenger seat) to an enjoyable experience. And that's why I'm such a big Pokémon fan--because the games are just plain good old-fashioned fun.

 I've had this idea on my mind for a long time, and finally was able to get around to rendering it. Whenever I see one of those "SHARE THE ROAD" signs, I just keep wanting it to say this because I have a really odd sense of humor.

Now I just want to do an entire series of Middle-earth road signs. "WATCH FOR FIGHTING ROCKS", maybe? "YIELD TO FELLOWSHIPS"? "DO NOT PICK UP GOLLUMS"?

 Those sly Rockets. Also don't invite them to Scrabble night. They have a surprisingly broad vocabulary.

(Yes, I know there are no female Team Rocket members in Gen I. While I tried to stay faithful to extant character designs when portraying actual in-game dialogue, I played around with character design a bit more if I had to make up my own characters for a scene. I guess my headcanon is that female Rockets have always existed, it's just that none of them appeared in Kanto in Gen I for some reason.*)

*Although, in Let's Go Pikachu and Eevee, there are quite a few female Team Rocket members, which sort of retcons their male-only population in Red/Blue.**

**I omitted Yellow because Jessie appears in that game, so it is not technically devoid of female Rockets. But at this point I've just become too pedantic. As my sister says, it's not that deep.

 I mean, they're a criminal organization and all, but that doesn't mean you can just jump to conclusions every time a crime happens.

 The constellation Triangulum has always incited me to rage confused me. It's arguably the second lamest of the constellations (only losing to its 16th-century Southern Hemisphere cousin, Triangulum Australe, which is even worse because it's a totally unoriginal knockoff of something that was already totally unoriginal).

So I was really surprised to find out that Triangulum actually dates back to ancient Greece. The Greeks were usually so much more creative than that. Triangulum doesn't even have a story or a myth behind it, it's just... always been a triangle.

Naturally, that meant I had to make up a myth for it. I guess I felt sorry for it.

 Oh, the Team Rocket Grunts. They had some of the most fun dialogue to work off of. I enjoyed portraying them as completely incompetent in so many ways, because let's face it, in real life criminals are pretty dumb. (And let's not forget the Team Rocket trio in the anime, who even after 25 years never figured out that trying to capture Pikachu was a complete waste of their time.)

I just like how this totally random Grunt in Mt. Moon thinks he's cool enough that he can complain to the higher-ups that a 10-year-old beat him in a Pokémon battle, and they'll blacklist the kid instead of firing him for being totally useless.

 I guess this pun only works if you have an Electric-type in your party. Which I did, so I could make the joke.

 Sometimes the stuff NPCs say can be so vague that it's left open to interpretation. Lass's line in the first panel is what she actually says after your battle with her. And that's all she says. So maybe she's talking about losing the battle. Or maybe she's talking about her contact lens falling out in a dark cave. But I'm already off to battle the next trainer, bye!

... I'm not sure why I'm so mean to Lass in these comics.

 Wait, I think maybe he meant useful in Pokémon battles. (In which case actually Zubat is pretty awful because Bite is a Normal-type move in Gen I, and Leech Life does next to nothing, and the fact that it's effective against Psychic-types is totally cancelled out by the fact that Zubat is part Poison-type, and basically just wait until Gen II rolls around with Crobat.)

If you're getting tired of all these old Pokémon comics, well, no one's forcing you to read this blog. I've been dealing with some health issues lately and haven't had a lot of time or energy or ability for new creative stuff. For the time being I need to rest and recuperate and fail at cooking Indian cuisine and try desperately to get around to playing Pokemon Legends: Z-A because those early-purchase bonuses are vital to my survival

Also I hope you caught that Zubat is wearing glasses even though it doesn't have eyes.

 I'm going through Mt. Moon and just thinking to myself, what are all these kids doing hanging out in a labyrinthine, Pokémon-infested cavern complex? Is spelunking the hot new after-school activity in Kanto?

And then there's Lass, whose "friends" told her to wait for them in the middle of a cave under a mountain and then went to the arcade.

 Maybe that's not really something you should be bragging about, Shorts Boy Youngster.

 It's an easy transition, really. Shorts to pants might be a little harder.

Fun fact: In the original Japanese games, Youngsters are called Shorts Boys. That explains why so many of them have a shorts obsession in their dialogue.

 Ever stop to think about how, no matter what time it is, every time you access a PC to get your Pokedex evaluated by Professor Oak, he answers right away?

It's almost like he just hovers in front of his computer at all hours waiting for trainers to email him.

Or like it's just a video game that I'm not supposed to think about as hard as I do.

 This guy's such a con artist, he's not even selling you an actual Magikarp. Just some weird yellow fish that probably doesn't do anything interesting.

In all honesty, the games make the whole buy-a-Magikarp thing out to be a big scam, but it's a great way to get a Gyarados early on, before you can get the Old Rod. So in actuality, it's a big strategic advantage pretending to be a scam pretending to be an advantage. Wrap your head around that.

 Again, the whole "taking in-game dialogue in an unexpected direction" thing.

Dude never specifically says what Team Rocket is in the news for, so I just came to logical conclusions.

 We're just having all sorts of fun at Museum of the Rockies's Virtual Fossil Fridays! Join us if you can--it's free and great for all ages! It is primarily aimed at kids, but I know I'm not the only adult in attendance. Hosts Ashley and MaggieJo are wonderful people, and overall it's just a chill paleo happy place to be on Friday mornings.

Last week, MaggieJo gave a great presentation on animals that are associated with Halloween (and why they are totally awesome and not spooky), and as she was talking about ravens, I just kept thinking it would be really cool if large theropods like tyrannosaurs had feathery "manes" like ravens do. Fossil skin impressions have shown they generally were not extensively feathered (with some exceptions like Yutyrannus, which lived in colder climates), but large theropods could still have had some feathers for display purposes.

Also, I fully support fluffy dinosaurs. Anybody who thinks things with feathers aren't scary has never dealt with an angry goose.

 When you live in a world where any inanimate object could potentially be a Pokémon, you probably start just seeing Pokémon everywhere.

 What are we on, like Route 3, and you finally realize this, Bug Catcher?

I just think it's kinda funny that this one says this, after previous Bug Catchers kept going on about wanting to find stronger Pokémon instead of training the ones they already have.

But also when you explain the joke, it stops being funny.

 I mean, he says that, but then Bug Catchers in Gen I just kinda use the same species over and over. It's almost like there were only a handful of Bug-type Pokémon back then.

 I just really wanted to draw Red being a derpnugget. Lass says that in the game, so this is obviously the sort of facial expression she was talking about.

Also, I hope nobody minds too much that I haven't posted much besides these comics lately. I've had a lot going on and haven't really had the inclination for drawing or writing, and when you try to force creativity, the results suffer. I've been taking some time to take care of myself, enjoy my family, go on brisk autumn strolls, and still try to get through this other game I've been playing so I can finally start Pokémon Legends: Z-A which sounds amazing from the reviews and I'm so excited to dive back into Kalos aaaaaahhhhhh

Hope everybody has a good November!

 Once again Bug Catcher completely misses the point. It's called Pokémon training for a reason, kid. Nobody's going to come up and hand you a Mewtwo.

Unless you're my niece, in which case I give her rare Pokémon all the time. #hypocrisy

 As the game points out, light-years are a unit of distance, not time. So are parsecs.

Or maybe you're AU from facing Brock?

 I imagine there's stuff in the Pokémon world that people there just take for granted most of the time. Like evolutionary stones. And sentient garbage bags. And impassable ledges.

 There's the right stuff, and then there's Charmander. #sickburn #TeamSquirtle

 If you stop to think about it, it is kinda remarkable that this 10-year-old Pokémon-training newbie somehow manages to defeat every top trainer in a region, most of whom are veteran adults, and become Total Champion of Everything within what seems like a very short timespan.

Gotta love video game wish fulfillment.

I have to give props to the very first season of the anime; despite its overall weirdness, it was actually very realistic in showing Ash not only not winning his first ever Pokémon League competition, but not even placing very high. That's life, kid.

 A running theme in this comic is taking in-game dialogue (in this case, the first line of this comic) in an unexpected direction. Kinda puts a new spin on the conversations you engage in on your Pokémon journey.

 Oh, Bug Catchers.

I characterize them in this comic kind of like the 6-year-old kid down the street who loves Pokémon but can't grasp the mechanics of the games, and keeps pestering you to tell him how to catch a level 100 Charizard in Viridian Forest.

 I highly doubt it's just coincidence that Blue happens to come strolling along right when Red wanders onto Route 22.

Also, I feel like Blue is just about the ultimate in hypocrisy and double standards; he's perfectly content to criticize Red all day long, but proves himself inferior to Red at every turn, and he basically uses his trash talk to try to disguise that fact.

It's kinda nice that later games in the series made the rival characters less ascerbic.

Also, I am so psyched to play Legends: Z-A, but I'm still trying to finish another game I've been playing over the past few months, and I'm dying trying to stay as far away from Pokémon-related things as possible so as to avoid spoilers. #gamerproblems

 I feel like anyone who insists it was sheer random chance that your Pikachu totally wrecked his Pidgey either doesn't understand Pokémon battles at all or is really, really in denial.

 Yes, I'm sure that particular nickname took a considerable amount of time and effort.

I like giving my Pokémon really nerdy nicknames that usually have to do with science. One of my favorites was in Pokémon Sword, when I named my Arctovish "Ariston", which was the nickname of a notable specimen of Leedsichthys discovered in England in 2001 which was named after a European washing machine model.

Yep, that's how I roll. (dons nerd glasses)*

*I always wear nerd glasses anyway because I'm nearsighted. So just imagine me taking my glasses off, but then putting them back on, real slow and cool-like.

 I just think it's really weird how the guy who teaches you how to catch Pokémon does his little tutorial right in the middle of Viridian City. You know, where there are no wild Pokémon. And how you can repeat the tutorial as often as you want, but it's the same Weedle every time. I feel like this guy's hobby is crafting pretend capture tutorials.

Later games actually have the capture tutorial happen out in tall grass, so it makes more sense.

I had a lot of fun just making him look so ridiculously excited about that "wild" Weedle.

 I get excited by weird things such as Mondays, cottage cheese, and making flowcharts.

In the astronomy community, I hear a lot of stories of laypeople seeing something in the night sky, not knowing what it is, and immediately jumping to the conclusion that it's aliens. Thing is, it's never aliens (as my longsuffering astro buddy Chris Lintott continually reminds us). And there's a lot of other stuff you need to rule out before you can start to think it might be aliens.

Which is why I made this handy flowchart to help you identify what you saw in the night sky! While it may never be aliens, there are a lot of fascinating objects to see in the heavens. Go out and learn more about the stars!

Sad but true story: In 1994, a large earthquake in Los Angeles in the wee hours of the morning left large parts of the city without power. Police and fire stations received frantic phone calls from people claiming that something strange was happening to the sky and wondering if the earthquake caused it.

They were seeing the Milky Way for the first time because of the greatly reduced light pollution.

Let's not have a repeat of this.

As an aside, I grew up in Los Angeles and remember that earthquake quite well. 0/10, would not recommend.

 Let's be real, Oak just really wants to chill at the lab and make other people run his errands.

 Just how old is Professor Oak? His age is never stated in the games. In the fourth movie, which takes place during the Johto saga of the anime, he's 50, and his anime design is nearly identical to his game artwork, so what if we assume he's meant to be 50 in the games as well? Except Gen I takes place two years before Gen II, so Oak would have been 48 in Gen I. (That means he would have been 38 when Blue was born????) 

I think what the games are trying to tell us is that 48 is far too old to be doing anything meaningful with your life anymore, so just go live in a nursing home and save the adventures for the tweens.

 It's always bothered me that Oak's last Pokemon, the one you and your rival didn't pick, just sits on his desk for the rest of the game. Forever. Sad and alone (or possibly in big trouble). And also kinda taunting you about the fact that you'll have to trade with another real live human being if you ever want the other two starters.

 Oh, the earliest generations of Pokémon games, when just one pixelated person could somehow conveniently block an entire road and keep you from progressing.

And there's nothing you can do about it.

 My 7-year-old niece was having a rough day, so I drew this to cheer her up. I feel like her cat Fred would totally be a Litten.

I popped over to the Idaho Museum of Natural History yesterday and did a quick marker sketch. I told you I have a weird obsession with skulls. I wanted to try something a little different from my usual life reconstructions and just kinda meditate on how beautiful bones are. And I don't mean that in a macabre way; living things are such incredible constructions where every part is perfectly tuned to support an organism's role in its ecosystem. I just can't help but appreciate such marvelous engineering.

This is Stegoceras, an adorable little basal pachycephalosaur from the early Late Cretaceous. I didn't realize before now that pachys have a lot of interesting textures on their skull, including lots of rugosity around the snout and front of the cranium with a comparatively smooth dome. They must have looked magnificent in life.

(Also, there are two completely different types of dinosaur named Stegoceras and Stegosaurus, and I need to have a stern chat with whoever's responsible for that.)*

*That's not currently possible considering Stegoceras was described in 1902, and Stegosaurus in 1877. Maybe in the next life.

 Ever notice the weird lack of accommodations for humans in the Pokémon world? (In the games, at least; the anime shows that Pokémon Centers also serve as hotels for trainers.) Pokémon Red/Blue was a pretty innovative RPG in that nothing ever changed the condition of the actual player character; the only well-being you needed to worry about was that of your Pokémon.

And then that changed in Pokémon Legends: Arceus when I fell off a cliff and blacked out and lost half my stuff.

 

Ah, ledges. Such an integral part of the Pokémon universe, and definitely not just a convenient way to gate player progress.

This is just the beginning of the running gag of the NPCs being morons with a strange lack of awareness of the world around them.

 During the most recent Virtual Fossil Friday, we somehow got on the subject of Lisa Frank while doodling ichthyosaurs, and, uh, this happened. You're welcome.

I have to admit it was kind of fun blatantly disregarding realistic coloration.

 I'm aware that I'm the only one who thinks these comics are funny. Good thing this is my blog and I can post whatever I want.

As a kid, I didn't really think twice about the idea of Pokémon battles, but as an adult it does seem like a bit of a questionable practice. Like, you receive this weak, young creature who relies on you for its well-being, and the first thing you do is walk out into the wilderness, aggravate some wild creatures into hostility, and literally throw your creature at them and command it to fight?

I think later entries in the core series do a reasonable job of explaining that Pokémon actually enjoy battling and it's an activity that strengthens the bond between Pokémon and trainers. It's probably also a good way to let a Pokémon blow off steam and channel any natural aggressive tendencies in a healthy and productive manner.

But the way Oak explains it in Gen I is kinda sketch.

 One last character design, for Yonwin! He was so fun to write in Earthkeepers and I think he probably had the most compelling character arc. After (spoilers) helping save the world and becoming the second-youngest Graling in history to earn a warrior's title, Yon has grown from a shy, insecure teen hiding in the shadow of his famous aunt, to a confident warrior, now quite famous in his own right, and secure in the fact that he loves both combat and technology. The Apparats made him a fancy high-tech spear and shield, but I imagine when Yonwin competes with other Gralings, he uses old-fashioned equipment to keep things fair.

It's not really mentioned clearly in the books, but Graling warriors train to specialize in two weapons, generally a long-range and short-range, respectively. This gives them more versatility on the battlefield, and also ensures they can keep fighting if something happens to one of their weapons. Fraa's weapons of choice are a long knife and a throwing club.

Gralings sound like terribly violent creatures, but they're physically hardier than humans and can take quite a licking with no lasting repercussions. That may be part of why they find combat fun, and make a point of organizing battles that are inversely proportional in scale to how serious the issue is that the battle will decide.

 I just had so much fun creating a design for Miette for the novel I've been brainstorming that I wanted to create a design for Kieri too. A few years have passed since the events of Earthkeepers, and Kieri has been keeping busy acting as a political liaison between the Apparats and the surface and sky nations--a job she finds she likes because it's basically just about making friends, which is something that comes naturally to her. As a young adult, she's mellowed out a little bit since her rambunctious youth... but she's still Kieri. And she loves having powered armor that allows her to fly.

I'm pretty sure Miette, Kieri, Yonwin, and Zuben will be main characters in this book, since they were just so fun to write in Earthkeepers, and play so well off each other. (I love writing Fraa too, but a larger cast gets hard to juggle, so I think she'll sit this adventure out.) I have no plans for writing further about Rohui or Wilder, who were supposed to be the two main characters of Skydwellers, but honestly turned out extremely dull. You can definitely tell by the end of that book that I was having more fun writing Miette, Kieri, and Fraa. 

Perhaps it's not surprising, considering Skydwellers was my first novel, and when I was writing the first draft, my focus was more "high-concept science fiction with a suitably professional air of emotional detachment" and not "I want to enjoy writing this". There's a lesson in there, I think.