One last piece of Fossil Friday fan art (for now)! We were talking about Anzu wyliei one week, and someone asked why it had such long arms. MaggieJo suggested maybe they were for hugging, and then she wanted to see two Anzu hugging. I love oviraptorosaurs, so I jumped right on that idea. 

 This NPC line always kind of puzzled me, because it's this old guy claiming Lt. Surge was his superior officer. But Surge looks at least twenty years younger than this dude.

Also, the military doesn't even seem to be a thing in the Pokémon universe. So I'm not sure what Surge is even a lieutenant in anymore.

He probably gave himself that title just to sound cool.

Also, I had a lot of fun in these comics giving the Gentleman trainer class basically a Cthulu moustache. You never see a Gentleman's mouth. Maybe they don't have mouths. You're welcome for that mental image.

 Pretty sure this is an accurate representation of Phoenix's mission.

I had way too much fun coming up with some questionably edible flavors.

 Like I said: a fake moustache solves everything.

 My buddies at Virtual Fossil Friday have been giving me so many fun paleoart ideas lately! We'll get going on a subject and then MaggieJo Widdicombe will say "somebody draw that", and honestly I don't have much else going on, so I've been keeping a list and working through them as fast as I can.

The other week, she and Ashley Hall were super excited because a freshwater mosasaur has recently been found in Cretaceous fossil deposits in Montana. This is really interesting because mosasaurs have traditionally been thought of as marine animals, but apparently some made the move to fresh water. MaggieJo said it would be terrifying to be boating down a river and see a mosasaur lurking right beside you, and then wanted someone to depict that. Your friendly neighborhood paleoartist is on the case!

I had a lot of fun with this painting. Looked up lots of references of Amazon River dolphins, which are adorable. Also I fully support mosasaurs with forked tongues. Partly this is because they were closely related to snakes, which have forked tongues, so it makes sense. And is cute.

 I'm always amused by references to the real world in early Pokémon media. As the franchise progressed, Game Freak began to emphasize that the Pokémon universe is a completely different place than Earth (although geographically and culturally very similar), even to the point of gradually phasing out real-world animals and strongly implying that Pokémon are the only non-human creatures on the planet. But in the early days, before the lore was really solidified, it seemed more like the Pokémon universe was this alternate reality "Earth, but with Pokémon". It kind of makes me wonder what would have happened if Game Freak had continued in that creative direction.

But clearly Lt. Surge is from Unova

 I came up with this one at 3 am when I couldn't sleep. I'm glad something good came out of that night.

I'm also glad it was still funny the next day.

Also, I know the Easter egg on the side panel is nigh-illegible, but I just couldn't bring myself to omit it once I'd thought of it. Consider it an extra for those who bother to zoom in.