The original Pokemon artist, Ken Sugimori, got his character and monster design chops by drawing years and years of Mendel Palace comics.
Somehow this is like 1/5 of them. Which is almost as strange as knowing there was a mostly in-color Quinty comic running for half a decade. But that's how you end up with the visuals for Japan's biggest selling RPG franchise that eclipses Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest combined, apparently.