Comic Review: Friends Forever #1 · 2:08pm Jan 22nd, 2014
Today, Friends Forever premiered, bringing us the newest comic adventures of those marvelous little ponies. Pinkie Pie and Applejack now have to compete in a dessert competition, and it'll be interesting to see who comes out on top...
Right?
Deep breaths...
The story begins with Pinkie, worried about her knowledge of dessert baking sloshing out of her brain, wandering into a dessert competition to represent Sugar Cube Corner. Meanwhile, Applejack was supposed to drop off a pie, but ends up being mistaken for another chef in the competition, Marine Sandwich. The real Marine Sandwich doesn't take this well and swears revenge. Meanwhile, one of the competitors wants to get the funds to reopen some restaurant Applejack liked, so the two try to throw the whole thing in her favor and Marine goes on a rampage with a Mr. Freeze icing gun and WHAT AM I READING?!
Just...what the heck is this? Is this a joke? Did they smuggle in one of those European magazine comics? Tell me, what am I supposed to make of this?
Okay, so the premise of the new series is supposed to be pairing off two characters and watching the magic. Here, Pinkie and Applejack are drowned out by the sea of one-shot parodies of cooking show/book/whatever idols and the two incredibly stupid subplots. The two interact, sure, but all of the solicits and previews indicated that they were supposed to be competing. Instead, Pinkie essentially bails on the contest early on and Applejack wasn't even supposed to be in it. Outside of the buffalo judge and the one chef who likes setting things on fire, none of the characters we're surrounded with are interesting or all that likable, and turn the story into a slog.
Speaking of a slog, what the heck happened to the artwork this issue? If you thought the Twilight and Rainbow micros were bad on the eyes, this one might just outright blind you. The proportions are wonky and frequently off-model, the colors are saturated and clash in a way that makes it painful to look at, and the entire thing comes across feeling very cheap and rushed.
And speaking of cheap and rushed, the whole “Marine Sandwich” subplot is a level of dumb I don't think the show has ever conceived reaching. Okay, so Applejack gets wrapped up in a tent, which is enough to make everypony mistake her for what is supposed to be a famous dessert artist. Dumb, but I'll move on. Where it becomes criminally stupid is when Applejack – who by now has discarded the torn-off tent and has been screaming at the top of her lungs that she is not Marine Sandwich – is still mistaken for her despite the fact that the two look absolutely nothing alike. Marine is a Fluttershy recolor with gray fur and a dark mane with aqua blue highlights, and Applejack...well, does she even sound anywhere close to that?
Every joke in the issue falls flat. All of them. The writing is sloppy and, I kid you not, actually uses emoticons as words. (Urge to kill...rising...) The conclusion is one of the most stupid things I have ever witnessed, comes out of nowhere, and continues the story's ultimate goal of completely forgetting what it was supposed to be about. And yes, I suppose I keep harping on this point, but trust me when I say that even if this issue HAD been about the two competing, it would have still been awful because of the art and lazy writing.
So congratulations, Rainbow Dash! You no longer have the lost FiM comic out there. This one not only takes the prize but does a second victory lap just to further demonstrate how much it sucks. I have never seen anything in all of G4 fall on its face like this. G3 was better than this. G3.5 was better than this. The Newborn Cuties...were worse, admittedly, but still, this comic is really, REALLY bad. Don't waste your money on it.
The next issue involves Discord and the CMC. Please let it be worth reading. I want to like Discord again.
That... that's pretty bad.
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And for those who do not believe, here is proof (courtesy of The Round Stable):
i.imgur.com/CjtZ1bg.png
Twilight was bad on the eyes, Rainbow was leagues over the Twilight one.
But sounds like this new series is trying their hands at new artists and colorists? Makes sense since they have others working on other comics like TMNT series and stuff for colorist anyways.
I'll likely still pick one up, if only to be able to properly digest what you said here.
WAIT it uses EMOTICANS as WORDS?!
Isn't... that like... what EXPRESSIONS are for?
Also, Discord AND the CMC. I can already hear people in the group groaning already...
HOPEFULLY it'll be less predictable payback story that ends with the CMC feeling bad or just getting away with something questionable.
CMC never get much done with them beyond cutie mark hunting and being put into bullying situations. I may have found the last CMC story to be incredibly dull for the first half, but it was a cute dullness. And it got good once they got Imp to play with.
Hoping this new series gives us more than just mane 6 stuff again. I was really loving the character centric stuff that could of gone into making use of some original characters. Though, that would take too much effort on their part...especially since the fandom would be quick to rage over anything that conflicts with headcanon.
This book was a disaster. Plain and simple.
1746437 Wow, you weren't kidding about the art. Only one panel, and it already looks pretty amateurish. Seriously, are that red pony's eyes different sizes?
From the online preview pages, the artwork certainly looks sub-par, unprofessional even, but nothing so bad as to be entirely unforgivable. Everything else though... yeah, this issue sounds like it really dropped the ball and is no way to make a first impression for an ostensibly new series. Still, hopefully it's just an aberration and not indicative of what's to come.
Maybe with a with just a bit more effort it could have at least come across as So Bad It's Good, but instead it just looks lazy and half-assed.
The S4 premier already fixed most of my own lingering hang-ups over that. I still think his initial "reform" was misshandled, but at least now I feel like he can be an actual viable character again inspite of that.
Yeah, I was less than pleased with this comic.
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That art!!
My eyes, they hurrrrrt!!!
1746437 Why does it look like it was made by some random artist and writer from DeviantArt instead of a more professional one?
Huh. That was, strange.
At least the fire pony chef was kind of awesome.
"it'll be interesting to see who comes out on top..."
You mean who comes out on the topping, right? Well, it is a cooking competition, and... Um... I'll just be over here.
Did they just phone it in and have some guy in shipping make the comic on his break? Hell the guy in shipping probably drawns better!
1746491 I know Deviants who can draw better comics than that!
Pinkie and Applejack don't actually compete against each other? Isn't that false advertising?
I'm normally excessively hesitant to call anything outright bad, but this was... Not the best. In fact, yes, it was the worst. By quite a margin. The art seemed amateurish compared to what would be expected of the official comic (although I'd like everyone to bear in mind that it could have been worse), the writing was indeed pretty sloppy, most, admittedly not all, of the jokes weren't as funny as we've come to expect, and the plot was downright silly in a bad way.
The only
saving gracesthings I liked about this issue were pretty basic things that I happened to like, rather than intelligent or extra-funny features. I share that one chef's enthusiasm for fire, but not the fact that he unfortunately looks like someone's OC. Seriously, his name is even Blade Sparxx. Not a typo, two X's. The griffin judge looks kinda cool. Bit like Anne Robinson minus the ginger hair and plus a beak, which had carnivorous serrations, which I though was a nice touch. And the buffalo judge (called Big Angie. Heh.) reminded me of Terry Pratchett's Nanny Ogg.Also, Pinkie ate Applejack out. of the layer of icing holding her still. Both the innuendo and the image of Pinkie slurping on AJ's hat amused me.
But yeah, I'm just saying that it had some (semi) decent features, but I agree that it was a definite slip in quality.
As for the next issue, the teaser pic is of the CMC with Discord with a whistle and a
"C.M.C COACH" baseball cap, which is all fine, BUT WHY IS THERE A CHAINSAW?! DISCORD, PUT THAT DOWN, THIS WILL NOT GO IN ANY WAY OTHER THAN DISASTROUSLY.
This just got reblogged by someone I know.
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Yes, it is. Okay, they technically compete for maybe the space of two pages, but after that they're actively attempting to throw the competition so some pony we know nothing about will win and save the
orphanagerestaurant.1747836
Really? By who?
Least one of the covers is cool.
1748793 Discords Advocate
1748793 What a ripoff!