By RJG
For some time now I have been wondering just like many others out there why don’t the Pokemon TCG company accept submitted illustrations of Pokemon cards so they my be printed?. When you think about it will give many talented and creative Pokemon fans a way to express their work and being able to see it get printed into a card. I’ve personally gotten bored with the pretty much same illustrations over and over again not to forget the ones where they look like they were made out of play dough. I have been online and seen some of the creative Pokemon fans “Fake” card displays and I must say some of those are really good and should be able to the recognition they disserve. It will also give the illustration artist a break and time to get to get back to full potential back when the Pokemon card illustrations where amazing like the E series such as Skyridge, Expedition, and Aquapolis which I personally think were they best English illustration cards ever printed.
It would be great to see a contest spur up where people can submit their own illustration and the top three or five or what ever get to see their cards get printed into sets or at least into secret rare cards that come out at the end of a sets. I think that the only down side to this is that many people may write to the Pokemon TCG company asking to get paid for their illustration or not getting printed exactly how they were drawn but I say hey as long as it got printed and share with people around the world what more could you really ask for. If not illustrations then they could maybe take submitted ideas from people where people can write in their idea of a new Pokemon LV X card, a new Legends card, a new prime, or even new ideas for a creative Pokemon move or Pokebody/ Pokepower. Being able to accept all this ideas or illustrations from people will really boost up sales they would have more people going to buy boosters just so they can get a chance of pulling the card that came from their idea, they would get more people interested in Pokemon do to the new really cool fan inspired illustrations, and just a great chance to give back to the fans, players, and collectors after so many years in business.
Actually as a matter of fact I just remembered now the Pokemon Company DID indeed host a contest where the winners would get their card printed and they came in a booster pack of 5 cards. Those cards are really rare and very hard to get a hold of especially the Pikachu card but I wonder if Pokemon would ever host another contest would the value of those earlier contest winning card drop in value seeing that more and more contest winning cards would appear?. Maybe later down the line where Pokemon in a desperate last attempt to keep the TCG alive and going will host another illustration contest again but only time can tell.