Today is a special day for three reasons!

That's right, dear friends! THREE reasons! Not only is today my 30th birthday, which was a fantastic celebration with friends and family, but it's also the 20th anniversary of Pokemon! So that leaves one more reason, right? I think I did my math correct, but I gotta tell you-- Sesame Street's on HBO now, so couldn't catch my daily lesson with the Count!

Anyway, 18 years ago, I was afflicted with Pokemania! I was but a seventh grader, totally engrossed with Pokemon. I watched the TV show (I even cried during the episode "Pikachu's Goodbye"), I played the games, I collected the figurines, I bought the plush toys, I collected the Trading Card Game, and the last thing I did is the third thing of why this day is so special.

After 18 years, I've dug out something from storage that hits me with such crazy nostalgia and washes me over with waves of feels. (That's how you kids out there nowadays talk on the 'net, right?) It's a comic book series I wrote and drew as an awkward kid.

I had thirteen completed issues with a scheduled fourteenth that was going to be about a giant magical stone on top of a mountain peak that all the Geodudes and Gravelers worshiped. It would have turned out that the stone was actually a giant version of the Pokemon Golem rolled up in a ball.

Anyway, the thirteen issues were written monthly, I remember having my mom take a sheet of paper that I drew the Pokemon logo on at the top and a goofy "Stortzum Comics" logo on the top left like typical comic book placement. With this rough draft, my mom copied, like, 20 copies for me so I wouldn't have to redraw the Pokemon logo for my issue covers again and again. There'd be a prototype version I could just draw on. Only the covers were in color with everything else done in pen with no shading hardly at all.

The "historic" first issue

The comics selfishly starred an up and coming Pokemon trainer named Phil Gotem (get it? Ash Ketchum, Phil Gotem?) whose starter Pokemon was a Mankey of things, as I really had a thing for monkeys at a younger age. Phil would be joined by and meet various characters on his journey to become a Pokemon master, and the stories were very much inspired by the TV show. I didn't have the creativity to come up with my own villains, so I just used Jessie and James from Team Rocket (also from the TV show) as Phil's enemies and comic relief.

Now, I share with you multiple photos I've taken of the comic book series I did. I had such a stupid smile on my face when I thumbing through these after so many years. I even had a subscription page with a cut-out box where the name of the subscriber, address, and how many issues they wanted were located. There was also a games page where readers would play Who's That Pokemon, play various word games like unscrambling Pokemon names, and much more. Heck, I even made ads for Nintendo 64 games on the back cover like Mario Party, Buck Bumble, and Donkey Kong 64. I think I was more creative then than I am now! (Just kidding,)

So, ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy this look at some creative works from my past! Since there are quite a few images, check them out after the break!