Culture

Presidential Candidates Reimagined As Pokemon Makes Even Donald Trump Kinda Cute

Gotta watch 'em all.

by Alex McKinnon  14 March 2016

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The 2016 Presidential race isn’t over for another eight goddamn months, and it’s already crossed into some pretty scary and depressing territory. Donald Trump is probably going to win the Republican nomination; protesters are attacking one another at rallies; Ted Cruz is the Zodiac killer. It’s getting hard to keep optimistic about the process.

Which is why little nuggets like this are going to be so important in keeping you sane until November. Gravity Falls creator and cartoonist Alex Hirsch has reimagined a bunch of the main Presidential contenders as Pokemon, turning this hideously corrupt and flawed exercise in quasi-democracy into a delightful Pokemon battle instead. Fittingly, Hirsch started off by turning Democractic candidate Bernie Sanders into an adorable fire-breathing Lizard-type Pokemon called ‘Burnie’. It works ridiculously well.

Donald Trump, meanwhile, gets reincarnated as a blob of animated toxic waste, while Marco Rubio becomes a grubby little hole-dwelling creature and Hillary Clinton is turned into a giant, manic Butterfree spin-off.

My personal favourite, though, comes from Dana Terrace, whose ‘HypnoCruz’ can render women sterile with a single look. Just like the real thing!

Illustrator Matt Cowdery, meanwhile, took the Burnie concept and ran with it, putting out this amazing rejigged Pokemon card.