Moképon
Moképon is a witty Affectionate Parody webcomic of the Pokémon Red and Blue games, though it also frequently parodies and references the Pokemon anime, and one of the most popular comics on Smack Jeeves.
It begins the adventure of an unenthusiastic trainer named Atticus Brent being kicked out by his mother for being unwilling to partake in the wonderful world of Pokémon and is forced onto his journey by her. After being given his Charmander ('affectionately' nicknamed Dragonthing) by a worryingly senile professor Oak, he finds himself slowly sucked into the world of Pokémon. Though he's all too aware that a lot of it doesn't make sense.
It can be found here on Smack Jeeves.
Tropes used in Moképon include:
- Aerith and Bob: Atticus, Kahn, Thaddeus, Trixabelle, and George. Though George is quite an unusual name for her gender.
- Alt Text: Starting from the third page of chapter 2.
- Ambiguous Gender: George, though Word of God confirms that she's female.
- Ambiguously Brown: Kahn and his younger sister, Mana. Word of God says they're of Turkish descent.
- Anti-Hero: Atticus.
- Art Evolution: Happens within the first chapter due to Schedule Slip.
- Art Shift: The author likes to experiment with different drawing styles, sometimes even dabbling with colour.
- Audience Surrogate: George, while she's looking for Pikachu in Viridian Forest. Who hasn't done that at least once in their youth, ignoring the fact there's better Electric-types in the game?
- Averted Trope: The author does this a fair bit, often confusing the fandom. Take, for example, when Dragonthing was fighting the Metapod; most of the comments predicted either that Dragonthing would light it on fire with its tail or Atticus would burn it with his cigar. Neither happened.
- Big No: Metapod! Nooooo!
- Big OMG: Done by the same Bug Catcher as above, no less.
- Black Humor:
- What does happen to the starter you don't choose, anyway...?
- The Pidgey incident.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall:
- When Prof. Oak starts reciting the speech from Pokémon Snap, Atticus points out its the 'wrong game'.
- Atticus tries to watch Top Gear in Pewter City's Pokemon Center and is surprised to learn that he's somehow missed about 3 1/2 years worth of episodes in the time since he left on his adventure.
- Brick Joke: Before he began his journey Atticus yelled at Dragonthing for being completely unable to attack on his own. Now...
- Chekhov's Gunman: It's easy to miss, but Thaddeus and Trixabelle can be seen on a wanted poster way before they appear in Viridian Forest.
- Combat Pragmatist: Dragonthing attacks a Bug Trainer's Caterpie while the guy is in the middle of boasting about the friendship between him and his Pokémon.
- Cool Mask: The person who owns Feraligatr; may cross into Malevolent Masked Man
- Cool yet Impractical: Fingerless Gloves. Lack of practicality is cool.
- Deadpan Snarker: Atticus being the prime offender, though other people sometimes like to get in on the action.
- Deconstruction: One of the comic's main sources of humour. Atticus doesn't want To Be a Master but is forced into doing so by his mother, there's a rather grisly explanation as to what happens to the remaining starter (as well as Pidgeys who don't get out of the way of lawnmowers), among many other examples.
- Department of Redundancy Department: Elle calling out her Pokémon.
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Elle: Rip his guts out! Gutripper!! |
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- Determinator: Dragonthing during its third battle.
- Deathbringer the Adorable: Gutripper turns out to be a Diglett. Though, considering Atticus' team consists of a Charmander and a Pikachu, Gutripper is still a big threat.
- Did Not Do the Research: Atticus, in-universe, as he simply does not give a crap about little details like how battling is supposed to work or what "Rat Attack" and "Bulbasoid" are actually called.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Atticus, as shown here.
- Easily Forgiven: Despite how incredibly pissed off she was after it happened, George was able to get over the whole "burning down Viridian Forest" thing with relative ease, mostly due to the fact that he saved her life when he quite easily could have left her there to die.
- Easter Egg: All of Atty's cigarette packets have a Malboro on them. The cigarette brand is Marlboro.
- Expy: The masked person looks quite similar to Madara Uchiha.
- Felix, anyone?
- The Pewter Gym Leader, Elle, has a lampshaded resemblance to Mello.
- Eye Scream: About half of the comments on this comic were something along the lines of "Ouch, tree in eye looks painful." (The other half were "I bet she beats him to the exit).
- Flash Forward: More of an example for the world itself rather than specific characters. Judging by bits of dialogue and imagery in the beginning, and assuming that it takes place in 2009, then this comic takes place around 18 years after the anime, where it's implied that Ash is dead and stated that Gary Oak is missing and presumed dead.
- Gender Blender Name: George, a female trainer that begins to follow Atticus.
- Genre Savvy/Genre Blind/Wrong Genre Savvy: Atticus is well aware of Pokemon's common cliches; however, he doesn't really get how his world actually works.
- Gross Up Close-Up: Of Kahn's Nidoran, leading to Dragonthing's hasty, fearful retreat.
- Half-Identical Twins: Kahn and Mana.
- Heroic BSOD: Poor Professor Oak has pretty much gone insane since Gary went missing and was presumed dead.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: Atticus' battle against the masked man was pretty obviously hopeless from the start.
- Imagine Spot: Twice in Chapter Three, when poor Dragonthing first imagines Atticus having the worst possible reaction to his Subverted Awesomeness and an extremely unrealistic outcome to him taking on Feraligatr.
- In the Hood:
- George.
- Mana also dons a rather cute Growlithe hoodie. The author is apparently fond of girls in hoodies.
- Jerkass:
- Kahn's friends, who express relief over him leaving behind his back.
- Atticus starts out as this, but the aftermath of his second battle shows he has a well hidden soft spot for Dragonthing.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: In this panel, and in the artist comments under it, it's implied that Atticus may be one of these. In-universe, George is quite convinced that he is one.
- Knight of Cerebus: In a way, Atticus is this to the Pokémon universe.
- On his first day he burned down Viridian Forest. One can only imagine what will come next.
- Love Bubbles: Aww look, Atty really does like Dragonthing. Not.
- Mythology Gag: Thaddeus and Trixabelle in a recent strip have been revealed to be members of Team Rocket, mirroring Jesse and James with the infamous Team Rocket motto. Many fans rejoiced.
- Nice Guy: Kahn.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Atticus' attempt to stop the bug swarm killing him, DT and George ends up burning Viridian Forest to the ground. George calls him out on it.
- No Sense of Personal Space: The Pewter City guide.
- Oddly Visible Eyebrows
- Oh Crap: Atticus and Dragonthing get a good one when they see the Beedrills and Butterfrees flying towards them.
- Poor Predictable Rock: Lampshaded by Bug Catcher Ricardo, who wonders if it's the fact that he only uses Bug Pokémon that leads to him being defeated so many times.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: Dragonthing, Rat Attack (Ratatta), Caterpie...it seems if a Pokémon has the potential of being cute then the author will make it so.
- Rival Realization: Atticus, after pulling off a GARY MOTHERFUCKING OAK completely by accident.
- Scenery Porn: For a webcomic it has very good art, with surprisingly detailed backgrounds.
- Single-Stroke Battle: Atticus pulls one against Kahn, taking out all of his pokémon with one hit each. Turns out they had already been weakened by Kahn's training, and that Atticus had pretty much (inadvertently) taken advantage of their weekness. He feels pretty bad about it.
- Shout-Out:
- Smoking Is Cool: Pretty much averted when Atticus eats his cigarette. Dragonthing's expression here pretty much says it all.
- Sociopathic Hero: Holy Arceus, Atticus. He does thankfully have a softspot, but for the most part he is selfish and apathetic towards everyone.
- Stalker with a Crush: George is set up to be one, while Atticus already considers her this.
- Tomboy: George.
- Waxing Lyrical: A few times; notably Atty's mother with the first Pokémon anime opening theme, and then George later with the first Johto arc opening theme.
- Webcomic Time: Subtle, but it's there.
- Wide-Eyed Idealist: George.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: George spends ages in Viridian Forest, looking for Pikachu. When she finally finds one, Atticus casually strolls by and catches it, barely breaking stride. Luckily, she doesn't really seem to mind.
- Zerg Rush: The mass of Beedrills and Butterfrees set out into Viridian Forest by Thaddeus.