Cracked #339

Cracked turns its gleefully irreverent eye on the Pokémon craze with this 1999 issue, featuring cover art by Rurik Tyler that says it all: a dead-eyed Ash Ketchum holds Pikachu at arm's length while the little yellow creature heaves a torrent of green slime all over his trainer's shirt. The cover gag — "They're So Cute You'll Want To… Puké-Mon" — captures exactly the kind of groan-worthy wordplay Cracked did so well, and the issue also promises parodies of Tarzan, Animorphs, and American Pie. If you lived through Pokémon mania in 1999, this is a wonderfully snarky time capsule of the moment everyone was simultaneously obsessed with and exhausted by the franchise.