Comic Review - Main Series #42 · 1:01pm Jun 9th, 2016
Time to get Pinked. It'll be fabulous.
Written by Katie Cook, hit or miss. Art by Andy Price, no complaints. Colors by Heather Breckel the Rainbow Lady, let's hope Rainbow Dash isn't in this comic.
Rarity is sewing up a dress when Pinkie rushes in, horrified; she has no idea what to get somepony as a present for the 2nd time in her life. This is an interesting statement, as the comic came out only a month after The Gift of the Maud Pie. Makes me wonder what the lead time is for production on these comics. Rarity asks Pinkie if she has any ideas at all what to get the mystery pony, and Pinkie brings up an old filly's book, The Princess' New Dress. Rarity's copy is gone in a throw-away but amusing joke about Sweetie Belle blowing up the bedroom. However, she has another suggestion; Pinkie can make a new copy of the book herself. Um, how? By her own claim she barely remembers the book, and Pinkie isn't much of an artist to illustrate it.
Pinkie gets excited by the idea of adding elements to the story, so Rarity decides to basically be her editor. She draws a very nice depiction of herself in a dress as an alicorn and then of a weaver, but Pinkie rapidly redraws it to star her and Rarity, since it's their book. At this point the formula for this comic is obvious so I'm gonna skim the next several pages as the two bicker back and forth on how to do things. The only thing of note is when some real-life sewn plushies of the two appear and are shown in a few panels. Really, as far as I can tell they Photoshopped real life plushies of them into the comic... why? And now they're putting on a play with the plushies in front of a backdrop and dollhouse furniture that were also obviously something real Photoshopped into the comic.
... It's a pity that I don't have a YouTube clip for this joke but I'm gonna make it anyway.
All right, that little detour was a complete waste of my time and effort. So let's move on and pretend that nonsense never happened.
Rarity refuses to slander to her career as a seamstress, and comes up with a three-page story where she designs a nice-looking dress for an idiot of a ruler and it makes her career take off. She then suggests adding a prince but Pinkie quips "If I can't add robots, you can't add a prince." Now we're doing a play again with claymation ponies. I think I figured out how this comic could come out only a month after Maud's episode, clearly the artist was looking for any shortcut he could take to reduce his workload.
Pinkie tells the story of the weaver offering to make the princess a dress out of a special fabric that only the smartest and most awesome ponies can see, and while the princess can't see it she lies. Rarity, upset at how it's making "her" look since she's portraying the reaver, adds that the weaver only did this to make the kingdom realize that their princess was a fool and a liar. And now there's fruit with googly eyes. I have stopped caring. The next couple pages cover the princess being fitted and her advisers also pretending to admire the dress, while Andy Price shows off his portfolio by giving us random art shifts under the pretense that it's for the book they're doing. We have a two-page spread that claims, in-universe, you cut out the pages and fold them to make a stage. Then a page where Andy spoofs Looney Tunes, Peanuts, and anime.
Rarity looks over the finished book and says it's a disjointed mess of arts and crafts. I agree. Can't they don't something normal? "I don't know what that is!" We then have Rarity hold up a sign to us "what color is the sky in her world" and random full page of a Mad Magazine-type fold in of a nightmarish Pinkie gobbling treats. The book is done and we find out who the gift is for - Rarity.
This issue sucks and is one of the most boring things the comics have done. There is no story here, it's Pinkie and Rarity bantering in an obvious formula over a stock fairy tale that everyone knows. Rarity's insistence of deviating from the actual story to preserve her reputation makes her come off as vain and selfish, while Pinkie is just weird and obnoxious, a trap even the show writers fall into. And why would she ask Rarity for help on her own gift? Even Pinkie is not that dumb. The book is also padded with several splash pages that do nothing but waste time.
Speaking of splash pages, the art is fine. Except then Andy gets lazy and starts photoshopping in real life images to save himself work, and for no reason starts throwing in random different art styles with the flimsy justification it's Rarity and Pinkie drawing the book. I'm guessing Andy realizes the comics are crashing fast and this is his way to try and get recognition for his artistic range in the hopes someone hires him.
Skip this one folks, nothing to see here.
*sigh*
You know, Drake...no offense, but while you're usually pretty sharp with your analysis of these things? I'm afraid in this instance, you somehow missed the point entirely. Pinkie and Rarity were attempting different art styles, which included craft projects, illustration techniques, painting techniques, and so forth. It was a running gag, and one that was executed magnificently.
And the handmade crochet plushies and claymation figures actually take a hell of a lot more time to make and shop into the comic than just drawing them would have taken.
It honestly feels to me like you were looking for something to bitch about here.
She wants the exact opposite of that actually.
And this proves that not only did you miss the point of the running joke, you missed the point of the entire comic.
This issue was an epic win.
Your review of this issue is an epic fail.
4010962 I understand the art shifts, but when you suddenly have real life objects Photoshopped into the comic, it's jarring. They didn't need to add real life objects to the comic to achieve that joke. The Rainbow Dash bad day comic showed how it could have worked with the artist just changing their style.
What was the point of the comic, then? Yes, it's sweet that Pinkie wants to give Rarity a new copy of the book, but I just don't think it worked.
I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with you on this comic. I like the different art styles, and although the story isn't anything really epic or groundbreaking, it's a nice slice of life tale. My only gripe might be that this should've been a Friends Forever story, not a main series story.
4011021 You could make the same argument against the real-life Gummy and Boneless bits in "Pinkie Pride" or the sock puppet in "Make New Friends But Keep Discord". Those were one-off gags that worked. This was a one-off gag that worked.
Everyone's entitled to their opinion, of course. You didn't like it, that's fine. I just want you to make sure you disliked it on its own merits, because it really did sound to me like you went into reading this looking for things to complain about.
4011086 If it was just the plushies, yeah it would have been fine. But they did it several more times and it was too much.
The reallife stuff art wasn't the reason I disliked the comic. I just found the story very dull and predictable. It was like Castle Sweet Castle but with only two people. Everyone knows the story of the Emperor's New Clothes, and they didn't deviate very heavily from it. I think it would have been hilarious if all these alterations they kept doing resulted in it being an incomprehensible mess.
Or maybe Pinkie kept making suggestions but then backing down when Rarity shot them down, because its her gift and Pinkie wants her to like it. I think that would have been a great ending, Rarity realizes she took control of the project that was supposed to be Pinkie's, but Pinkie doesn't mind because it's for Rarity anyway.