Hidden Details: Bad Time Stories

Hey there! Time to talk about another bunch of hidden details and references! This week's comic is very Pokémon-heavy. That's probably because my subconscious mind is telling me to finally stop drawing Super Smash Bros. comics and draw a comic about another game again. I'd really like to draw comics about more recent games like Red Dead Redemption 2, Resident Evil 2 or Kingdom Hearts III, but the problem is that I haven't played any of those games yet because I'm still eliminating games in my backlog. And it's very hard to come up with clever jokes about games I haven't played yet. So for now, you have to settle for a few more Smash comics. I don't think you mind.

This is the second time I've drawn Sakurai reading a bunch of characters bedtime stories! The first one was Roster Imposter, where he was reading to all the Fire Emblem characters.

Throughout the Everyone is Home series, I've embraced the idea that Wolf, Fox, Duck Hunt Dog and Lucario behave like actual dogs, so I thought it'd be funny to make Lucario sleep like a dog in a dog bed.

Likewise, I gave Incineroar a cool cat tower and made him sleep on top of it.

As for Ivysaur, I thought it'd be cool to make his sleeping style a bit jungle-themed, so I made him sleep in a hammock he fashioned from his own vines. Isn't that cute? Sakurai even installed a hook for him in the ceiling and everything.

Greninja sleeps in a "Cool Ninja Tree", as you can read on the sign nailed into the bark. I was afraid nobody would get why Greninja sleeps in a try, so I put that sign in there to make it a bit more easy to understand. Him sleeping in a tree is a reference to his first appearance in his reveal trailer, in which he is hanging from a tree, swings around and stands very straight on a branch like the badass ninja frog he is:

Mewtwo stands in the back of the room, apparently not listening to Sakurai's bedtime stories. This is pretty in line with his stoic/evil character already, but I intended this to be a reference to the fact that he is also the only character in Smash that won't clap in the results screen if he loses:

He's both a bad loser and a bad bedtime story-listener.

Pichu/Blackrose is in a straitjacket in this comic, to prevent him from hurting himself. I assume you're already familiar with Blackrose in the Everyone is Home comics, so this doesn't need more explanation. If not, leave a comment and I'll gladly give you the full Blackrose lore.

And then there's Horsea Potter, the book Sakurai is reading to the Pokémon fighters before they go to sleep! This is an obvious play on Harry Potter in which all the characters are Pokémon, which was really fun (and easy) to come up with. Harry Potter became Horsea Potter, Ron Weasly became Ron Weedle, Hermione Granger became Happiny Granger, Dark Lord Voldemort became Dark Lord Vigoroth, Horcruxes became Haxoruxes and Hogwarts became Watchogwarts. Yay, puns!

And that's it for this week's hidden details. Hope you've enjoyed Pokéfest 2019. See you all next week!

Cheers!

- Abel