"Wait, is this for Landorus-Therian or Landorus-Incarnate? The artwork isn't actually consistent on which one is used, and the Defuse card uses the Incarnate mustache but Therian cloudy hand things?"
"You're right, clearly this artist has no idea what he's doing and should be ashamed of himself"
I think this work might have hit personal records for Smogon Sketch engagement counts on the Facebook page, but in retrospect it probably wasn't surprising. Look, it involves kittens and
Matthew Inman; that really shouldn't need explanation. Back when I was a student in circa 2006, this was where a friend of mine introduced me to The Oatmeal and I've had a glancing relationship with Inman's brand of humour and storytelling ever since. I've actually tended to prefer his earlier work that relied more on infographic explanations of grammar, the effects of coffee on the body and why working in design is an absolutely cursed role. I personally think his more recent work based on very sketchy line quality and focusing on animal awareness or motivations for running marathons feels more Instagrammable for the sake of appealing to Gen-Z tastes. But hey, he's the guy with published books and games and an astounding social media presence, while I'm the crusty curmudgeon with a passing background in game design, absolutely no motivation to run faster than a brisk walk and I'm largely skittish around animals that aren't contained inside capsules, so the man clearly knows what he's doing.
The turnaround for this article was pretty tight given that it was already fully written and approved and scheduled for release, before inspiration happened to strike me. Having FOUR copies of Exploding Kittens lying around the house might've done it, helped in no small part by the game's ridiculous amount of social media penetration and because we're all
that lazy picking Christmas gifts for each other. Contrary to what a few of the comments on Facebook have indicated, I'm not a huge fan of Exploding Kittens; part of that might be due to my experiences trying to teach my relatives in a conservative Asian context how to play, and it's not just because I have to skim over the art of a man wearing the skin of a cheetah around his crotch. Having to explain the idea of "infinite actions within a turn as long as you have resources" and "combos you can play with cards that lack instructions" is, surprisingly, not as intuitive as designers might think it is. It honestly makes me wonder how my older relatives survived learning how to play Uno or Bridge, especially when you consider poker cards don't come with illustrated rulebooks. But as Decker Shado would put it, I suppose we all have a perverse interest in watching felines
BLOW THE F*CK UP.
Article author
zeefable also noted that at this point I'd done the art for most of the articles she's written, referring to me as "the goat". Thanks to Overwatch I'd already learned what "the goat" means, but I couldn't resist referencing Tintin's Destination Moon:
This is going to be my response any time I'm called a goat and in my opinion, there's not much that can match up to an infuriated Belgian professor who's only hard of hearing in one ear.
https://www.smogon.com/articles/vgc-history-landorus-t
