[Manga - Pokemon Viz Media] Collecting the Original A4 American Style Comics

[maidenforce19]

Hello,

I just started collecting the Pokemon titles released by Viz Media in their original A4 American-style comic book format that they used prior to switching to standard manga volumes. The titles that used this were: Pokemon Adventures (PA), Electric Tale of Pikachu (ETOP), and Magical Pokemon Journey (MPJ).

Regarding the above titles - more specifically, PA and MPJ - I know that they are split into different parts and volumes (Bulbapedia has helpful lists on these, such as this one for PA: https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/w...monthly_issues). However, in my search through titles to purchase, it looks like for a few issues, there might have been different covers. A good example of this is comparing the cover to Part 5, Issue 5 in the above link to the version being sold on eBay currently at the following link: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Pokemon-Adv...oAAOSwax5YuGFd.

I am thus looking for someone to to confirm that variant covers indeed existed and, if so, when this would occur and how prevalent they were. For example, I would imagine that maybe this had to do with different print runs - first editions had one cover, whereas later print runs may have used another. The strange thing is, almost all issues of all 3 series above that I have come across on the internet have consistent covers that are in line with Bulbapedia - it is only a handful that I've seen different covers of. Additionally, the seller of the item above on eBay sent me scans of the inner cover that has copyright dates and other pertinent info, and I didn't see anything that differed from the copy I have.

I know when it came to the collected volumes, other publishers were involved such as Chuang Yi and Shogakukan. However, AFAIK, these American-style comics were ONLY released by Viz (correct me if I'm wrong), so I don't think different publishers is the rationale here.

There is very little info of this on the internet so I am hoping someone might be knowledgeable in this area. From a collecting perspective, this throws a huge curve ball. Any help would be much appreciated!

-maidenforce19

[Mr.E]

Wish I could help you, but I merely post to assure you that at least someone around here is still alive and reading posts. Kudos to your effort in scouring the dark corners of the web in search of what you want, hopefully you can find the information you're looking for in due time.

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

I agree with Mr. E.

Some Pokemon manga were translated to Finnish a year or two ago, and they had odd printing errors. The same page was there twice.