Pokemon Surfaces Some of Its Earliest Known Artwork to Date

When it comes to Pokemon, there are hundreds if not thousands of die-hard fans out there who want to know all there is about the franchise. Some notable finds have been made over the years thanks to these fans, and it seems another has gone live. After all, a rare postcard has been uncovered from 1993, and it seems to contain some of the earliest Pokemon artwork to date.

The discovery was made by the Instagram user hapycakeoven as you can see below. The historian did some serious digging to find one of Pokemon's earliest artifacts. The item in question is a 1993 GameFreak holiday card that was shared way back when, and hapycakeoven found a copy in a forgotten issue of GameFreak magazine.

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"The 1993 Game Freak staff New Years card shows that some pokemon designs were already near finalized several years prior to the initial release of the games! I was very surprised by this discovery, as I have never seen an image of the 1993 card before. Luckily, I found an index within the 1999 special edition of Game Freak magazine," the fan shared.

As you can see above, the artwork shows two rather recognizable characters, and the art predates any known Pokemon sketches to date. Of course, the card doesn't have anything on the introduction of Capsule Monsters as it was brought to Nintendo in 1990. The concept was Satoshi Tajiri's earliest design of the franchise that would become Pokemon. The game was in production between 1990 and 1995 before it went public. The following year.

In that production timeline, a fair bit of content has been discovered by fans dating back to 1995. However, this postcard is one of the only pieces that go all the way to 1993. But even back then, Kangaskhan and Exeggutor were firmly established in the first generation of Pokemon.

What do you think of this newly surfaced bit of history? Which of Pokemon's original designs remains your favorite? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB.