Talk:Narrative illustration (TCG)

Popularity

I feel like I should note here that this page has recently been shared a lot on Twitter. It seems to be very popular, despite still being a userspace page. If nothing else, it's useful to put this here for posterity. --SnorlaxMonster 13:09, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Remove Cosmic Eclipse Mawile and Mega Lopunny & Jigglypuff GX

I don't think a cameo on another card is a strong enough connection to present two cards as forming a narrative. This means that the Mawile and Mega Lopunny & Jigglypuff GX entry should go. There are a couple of other cards from Unified Minds that have similar cameos from the Tag Teams (Coach Trainer, Lucario, Drifblim, Meloetta, and Kangaskhan) which are not on this page and I feel Mawile is part of that group. In short: Location + Pokemon = Narrative Illustration. (Some of them just have a shared location, which I think still counts.) Mawile and Mega Lopunny & Jigglypuff GX don't have the location element. Salmancer (talk) 20:24, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Furthermore, this page does not count other cards that are more explicitly cameos. Otherwise, full art Rapid Strike Urshifu VMAX and the promo printing of Pikachu in Crown Zenith should count. And they don't.Salmancer (talk) 20:49, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Oh hey, while I was looking for something else, I found that this concept has a name: "TAG TEAM cameos". It's used in this article as a header and in the writing: "Even Supporter cards can feature TAG TEAM cameos!". It even adds the mechanical definition of "the cards featuring these guest appearances also have attacks, Abilities, or effects that involve TAG TEAM Pokémon you have in play." We've picked names off of less, "Pikachu in a cap" comes to mind, and this group clearly has a boundary that can be drawn because of the mechanical implications. Sounds to me like a clean split. Salmancer (talk) 13:38, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

What next?

So, I went over literally every card and added on this page what I found. I know this page is already big, but there's more... I think that a lot of cards could be also grouped by locations, and I've seen many cards with places of Unova being covered by ice so they may should appear on this page too. There are also hundreds of cards that depict evolutionary line, share an illustrator, and art style, but they don't seem to tell any story beside Pokemon evolving.

Beside splitting this page into "Combined illustration", there is also a lot of cards that depict the same situation from two different angles that could be split into own smaller article. I'm also not sure how canon is the story about collision of the two worlds (look for "Chaos Tower" on this page and Fennekin/Chikorita cards), it's explained well by Lockstin, it's actually really interesting. Cameos of human characters or tag teams could be also a seperate thing, I think.

And the last thing, I think the tables for this page could be redesigned. I may have enough of Pokemon cards for now, so anyone, feel free to do what you want.--Rocket Grunt 18:40, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Further splits

Given that this page is still pretty beefy even after I broke off combined illustrations, it seems prudent to figure out how we want to go about splitting it further. There've been a few suggestions for splits to make from both here and on Discord:

• "Perspective illustrations" - mentioned by Maverick Nate in Discord some time ago. I'm assuming this is just "depicts the same scene from multiple perspectives," I'm not sure if that's widely recognized but it would be a relatively easy and impactful split.
• Parallel Worlds cards - mentioned by a couple of people, I feel these could just go on that page instead of making a subpage. Something like Chikorita/Fennekin can be on both pages, idk how we feel about the pairs of cards with the same Pokémon.
• TAG TEAM cameos - mentioned by Salmancer above. I'm not really familiar with these so someone else would have to figure out which cards would count for this.
• 151 evolutions - mentioned by Salmancer in an edit summary, this would seem to apply to most of that set. Not sure if we'd do a separate page or a subpage of something.

Feel free to suggest anything else that may warrant a split. If someone else would like to do userspace drafts or something, I'd be willing to help with those, though I'm not the best person to ask for examples not currently listed. --Apopheniac (talk) 18:11, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Outtro for the 151 page (main template goes above it):

151 is a set where each evolution chain is illustrated by a single artist, and almost all of those chains have a narrative spread across them. (cite official site here) As such, 151 has a dedicated page. Salmancer (talk) 19:41, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Is 151 narrative? Or simply related theming. Other time periods like the e-Card Series and the HeartGold & SoulSilver Series did this too, so I wouldn't say this type of art is narrative , just the theming was stronger than it usually is. ^Maverick_Nate 00:39, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

"Scarlet & Violet—151 is a unique expansion where illustrators portray a Pokémon and the story of its Evolution across several cards. This is common with illustration rare cards, but this trend spans across the whole set from 1–151. Illustrator Naoyo Kimura showcases the Evolution from Pikachu to Raichu by having the two Pokémon walk in different directions at different times of day." - 151 dedicated site

To paraphrase Gamechamp3000, "Arguing with the game's mechanics would be silly. Equally silly are the game's mechanics." The official word is that 151's cards are telling stories, and the provided Pikachu and Raichu cards demonstrate standards that are extremely lenient. It's just time of day advancing linearly, which when you think about it means nearly any two cards count. Basically, if we say any of the 151 cards don't count, we must double back and create standards to judge every card by in an Bulbapedia capacity, in the same manner Signature moves are judged. And then argue over the inherently subjective nature of artwork for the rest of eternity. "That's clearly just two different individuals that happen to be in the same place at different times!" I'd rather take the silly option, Which is... pretty much every card in the set that is a Pokemon in a evolution chain, because almost all of them demonstrate narrative on par with an officially designated card. (And it's also the very point of the set, as per the quote) As far as 151 is concerned, because of the set's entire gimmick, even the flimsiest of connections get to count. Salmancer (talk) 01:37, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Snorlax (Fates Collide 77)

I put this card along with Hypno and Clefairy because at the bottom left corner you can see the back of Hypno's head and its arm. For me it looks like Hypno just being a menace.--Rocket Grunt 08:49, 27 April 2024 (UTC)