Pokémon “purists” who swear by the first generation or two of games love to rag on later creatures like Garbador as an example of uninspired character design, and use these arguments as justification for why things ain’t as good as they used to be. But don’t let nostalgia cloud the fact that Red and Blue had some questionable-looking Pokémon of their own. Because really, Machop is basically just a strong blue naked guy, right?
The point is, Pokémon design has always been subject to some unintentionally hilarious results, so why not make them intentionally hilarious? That’s what Dan Martin did in a recent installment of his webcomic, Deathbulge. He created 30 hilariously goofy “new” Pokémon with designs that are both outrageous and not entirely implausible.
“Coming up with evolution stages for Pokémon was always a fun activity growing up,” Martin said to Mashable. “I loved the process of drawing monsters and then using those drawings as a basis for designing their later, more evolved forms. Same goes for RPG final bosses. I guess It was only a matter of time before I applied this to a Deathbulge comic.”
Some of the evolutionary lines here are genius: Hair is hilarious (hil-hair-ious?), but Chesthair and Nesthair, which has two bird heads emerging from the pectoral thicket, is icing on top. We’re also super partial to Bee, which is just a bee, and Beeeeee, which is also just a bee… but longer. And of course there’s Eg, whose evolved forms are essentially a progression towards a complete breakfast.
Check out all 30 creations here, and let us know how practical Soak’d could actually be in battle. Fingers crossed that it pops up in Sun and Moon!
And speaking of that nasty habit of not being fond of new Pokémon…
Images: Dan Martin
