Pokémon: Pikachu Meets the Press

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Pokémon: Pikachu Meets the Press
This book deserves to have all of its copies buried in the same landfill where every single copy of the E.T. video game was buried and dismantled in 1983.
Book Type: Kids Genre: Fiction Comedy Author(s): Gerard Jones Publisher: Viz Media

Pokémon: Pikachu Meets the Press is a book collection of newspaper comics based off the Pokémon series that ran from 2000-2001, which is a Pokémon comic series called the Pokémon Newspaper Strip. The comics were critically panned by critics and fans of the franchise upon release, as well as fans of the anime. It was short lived due to a variety of reasons.

Why It Couldn't Catch 'Em All

1. The writer of the strips, Gerard Jones from the much reviled Batman Fortunate Son from DC Comics, has done little to no research of the Pokémon franchise in general, nor did he even understand what the franchise was like at all. In that case, all these strips added together in one book showcase this series of comic strips is a total disservice and a huge mockery to the Pokémon franchise in general.
2. The writing ranges from being awkward, to negative and mean-spirited, to downright abysmal.
3. The back cover of the book claims to get the thinking of children and adults enjoying this series of strips, which sounds like an insult to the intelligence of both kids and adults because of the way they were written.
   • The "psychological humor" as it calls itself is not funny and it's said on the back of the cover as an excuse insult the intelligence of adults.
4. The jokes in the strips hardly ever even hit. Either they are cynical and negative, or just flat-out childish.
5. Some of the characters are poorly written despite being written how they were in the original run:
   • Ash acts more cynical than he does in the anime.
   • Pikachu is a spoiled brat. For example, he whines about not getting Christmas presents.
   • Bulbasaur is a pessimist.
   • Squirtle is, for some reason, a party animal.
6. Inconsistency: Some of the comic strips do have the tendency of having color, but some clearly do not have color. According to Viz Media on an archival page, the color is only on Sunday newspaper strips, which also shows how low budget the strip was.
7. Speaking of lacking color, some of the black and white strips have nonexistent backgrounds where there's nothing but a white background while everything else is black and white.
8. The comic strips (no, not just the strips, but the book in general) don't even use a logo of their own; instead, they use the official Pokémon title in the start as shown on the comic with Misty and her Psyduck. Lazy much?
9. The art style and illustrations look terrible, even some of the character designs look really bad looking, especially for Pikachu and Ash.
10. Speaking of Gerard Ford's lack of research, almost everything goes against the source material of the anime that the series of strips were based off of to the point that there are so many turnoffs with this series of strips:
    • Ash is not on a Pokémon journey; instead, he's attending school. Of course, this made sense with the Sun and Moon anime where Ash went to Pokémon Training School, but here with one of the strips, this is added in out of the blue. This wasn't until Ash went to the Johto region in the last strip, we'll get to that later.
    • Misty has a Squirtle for some reason, which is inaccurate because she never even had a Squirtle in the original series. Thankfully, it's Ash's Squirtle, which is one of the few improvements to find to find from this series of strips.
    • There is one comic strip where Ash and his mom, Delia Ketchum, celebrate Thanksgiving and Jigglypuff comes to the scene. This is the most inaccurate because Thanksgiving is a common holiday for America and Canada. However, to give credit, there is a Thanksgiving holiday called Labor Thanksgiving Day, but that is nonexistent because the Kanto region is based off the real-life Kanto region in Japan, the same Japanese region where Tokyo is the nation's capital.
    • The Pokémon clearly talk to one another when they are not supposed to in both the main games and anime, except for the case of Team Rocket's Meowth.
    • Ash has a Metapod shown again, yet in the anime, his Metapod evolved into a Butterfree and left him with his girlfriend in "Bye Bye Butterfree', which totally contradicts the events of said episode.
11. Professor Oak is nowhere in this series at all. Instead, Ash has a school teacher as shown in one of the strips.
12. Until the last strip released in 2001 where Ash made it to the Johto region, Team Rocket hardly got any screen time at all. They appeared in only in the last strip and that was it.

Redeeming Qualities

1. Ash's Snorlax and the Jigglypuff remain the same personalities as in the original series.
2. Due to all the inconsistencies, it could safely say that it's non-canon to the Pokémon franchise.

Trivia

• After the strips finished due to negative feedback from fans, Gerard Jones was arrested in 2018 for six years for obsessing with child pornography on his computer.

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