Bulgémon Battle ROW BY ROW COMMENTARY

Hello and welcome to a SUPERTHOROUGH commentary on an earlier and noticeably very different draft to the final result of the Bulgémon Saga.

ROW 1: Yeah nothing different here, only the names got changed. This is the only time the announcer appears in this version!

ROW 2+3: No Ceriowl! Only Jayne(Musty) was hungry in this version with Wayne(Brick) being the one to voice complaint and intercept the breakfast with a DISGUSTING HAIR ATTACK.

ROW 4+5: ? was originally going to be in it. Coming complete with a whole slew of ?-related gags, at first I thought it was clever and fun but ended up deciding it was TOO CONFUSING TO ENJOY. Though I did like how Roadkill had to ask for confirmation before "fainting". Shame to drop it. 

Oh yeah as you can see from the red and blue rows of circles being crossed out. I was originally gonna have a little graphic keeping track of all the eliminations and how many Bulgémon were left just like in the games but figured it was unnecessary.

ROW 6: Right from the get go I wanted Threef to just horrendously chomp down apokemon into a huge bloody mess and have it say "fainted". The car driving move makes less sense for Threef but IT WAS FUNNIER IMO.

ROW 7: Yeah no major changes here. STRAIGHT TO THE FINAL BABY.

ROW 8: THAT'S RIGHT Drown'd joins ? in the list of Bulgémon that almost made it into the final story but didn't. I ditched it in favour of more room for the Quakstak narrative as I felt that was far more fun and I didn't want to extend out of 15 rows.

ROW 9: STRAIGHT TO THE FINAL BABY. Actually this was one of the first gags I thought up for the Bulgémon Battle Saga which helped encourage me to go ahead with it. I was glad I could bring some NEW Bulgémon gags into the mix so it wasn't a total rehash.

ROW 10+11: Yeah, originally there was gonna be a WHO'S THAT POKÉMON parody where I draw a pikachu silhouette but it ends up being an upside down "?" conveniently shaped just like pikachu. Making the "?" in the first of the 2 panels a gag in itself as that WAS the answer. But again, I dropped it for the same reasons I dropped all the other ??? panels.

ROW 12: STRAIGHT TO THE FINAL BABY. As soon as I realised Quakstak and Beeeeee had rather uhh.. CYLINDRICAL forms, I was keen to have a panel where they are sizing each other up as 2 long columns. I'm glad it guided me seamlessly into a funny attack sequence.

ROW 13+14: THAT'S RIGHT. Originally Quakstak was going to get traditional and give this saga a classic Deathbulge binning panel and also a "kick forward, stare, turn around kick" row as featured in all the other hourly comic sagas. BUT HE DIDN'T. In the final he ended up just replacing the trainers role and summoning Wardroab.

Boatse also played a much less prominent role in this, but we couldn't have that could we. As grim as the inspiration for that Bulgémon is, I was really happy with the final design. Boatse was actually considered to be included in the original Bulgémon poster but I CHICKENED OUT. In fact Boatse is based off a drawing I did in MSPaint over a decade ago, I really wish I could find it, if I do I will be sure to share it with you guys.

ROW 15: Originally yeah Quakstak just got bored and left (I think this was because I was keen to stay faithful to the 6-on-6 Pokémon battle format but DIDN'T WANT TO DRAW A FULL 6-ON-6 FIGHT. 

Obviously Beyblade was a keeper. I used to watch Beyblade before school every day when they used to air it back in 2001 or whatever. And today it still remains the only animé I've watched properly. THAT'S RIGHT CONFESSION TIME I NEVER WATCHED POKÉMON, I NEVER PLAYED THE GAMES EITHER, ALL I HAD WERE THE TRADING CARDS, OH GOD I'M A PHONY. (I really liked the trading cards though). Oh actually wait now that I think about it I did give Black a go not so long ago, but that was purely because yeah I never played the games before and felt I should at least play ONE, I didn't complete it though haha.