If you’re anywhere near my age, young or old of heart, you “remember” the Pokemon craze when it first exploded unto the western world. Pokemon Red, the less-cool Pokemon Blue, the ccg card game, the restaurant toys, all of it very fun. There was a cartoon, too! But none of it really went very much in depth, into the personal lives of the characters. Why would it? It’s a friggin kids cartoon. But did you ever notice, you heavy-hitting fans of the Pokemon world, did you ever notice that the main character, Ash, was a bastard child? Truly the world was not ready for this storyline, and thustly it was never explored. Until NOW!

Designer / illustrator / writer / cartoonist Maré Odomo had a super idea. It’s called “Letters To An Absent Father” and it’s all about the main protagonist of the Pokemon original series, Ash, and the idea that not only do you never see his father, he simply isn’t in the family picture. It’s totally a bad social situation.

Odomo explains in a nutshell:

The first strip was originally created for Cory Schmitz’s video game art + culture magazine, EXP. Not to be confused with Matthew Kumar’s exp. The first strip expanded into 4. I had to start including my name because they were being passed around without giving me credit. I’ve left the original strips as they are because they show my growth, which is more important to me than consistency. Also, I am too lazy to redraw them.

The 4 strips kept growing and now there are 12.

I felt bad about making a print-only comic so that’s why I made the wallpaper. It’s based off of strip #7 (the print-only one). #8, which is animated, was created as another little Thank You to my online fans. Since, you know, you can’t print out animated gifs.

You can view all of these strips below, plus there’s a mini-comic which you can buy with your money! Not only does it come in regular edition, there’s a customized version too!

Letters To An Absent Father
MINI-COMIC NOW AVAILABLE!
4.25 inches x 4.25 inches
Fits in your Nintendo DS cartridge case!

$3 for the comic, but for $13, I’ll draw you a picture on the notebook paper!

Several of these customized comics (with a little sketch) are shown below as well. Enjoy this expanding of a universe thoroughly. It is always a strange and interesting journey to do so.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies custom culture category.