• Member Since 21st Sep, 2013
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DrakeyC


Writer, reviewer, creator of Filly Fantasy VI, occasional PMV maker, and uploader of mildly amusing image macros to Derpibooru. https://www.patreon.com/drakeyc

More Blog Posts1514

  • Thursday
    Friends with Ponies

    Twilight and Sunset:

    Twilight: "Hey Rarity, can I borrow your hair curler, I can't find mine."
    Rainbow: *eyes widen*

    Pinkie: "Oh my god, I just thought you guys were doing it, I didn't know you were in love!"

    Shining Armor: "What? No, no no no...what are you doing? GET OFF MY SISTEEEEEEEEER!"

    Read More

    0 comments · 74 views
  • 2 weeks
    1000 Followers

    My thanks to Malcharion for pushing me to the milestone :D

    8 comments · 70 views
  • 2 weeks
    Revised Harmony Spirits

    I wanted a full set of these with proper art, so with permissions from mauroz, here they are. A couple effects have been tweaked to be consistent with modern vernacular in the card game and for my own better understanding of card design and balancing, and I also added a new "Tier 1.5" form for Twilight so she can have her own Fusion outside the ace monster, and finally added Sunset as a

    Read More

    5 comments · 133 views
  • 13 weeks
    Go spread the holiday cheer

    My Jinglemas gift was The Hearth's Warming Truce by TheLegendaryBillCipher, go give it a read and leave a comment.

    0 comments · 76 views
  • 16 weeks
    2024 will (hopefully) be the end

    The outline is done, the roadmap is drawn, all that remains is to follow it. There may be some bumps along the way, but we'll be on our way.

    My friends, let us step together beyond the horizon.

    6 comments · 333 views
Nov
5th
2015

Comic Review - Friends Forever #22 · 11:52pm Nov 5th, 2015

Princess Celestia and Pinkie Pie. There'd better be cake. Written by Christina Rice and art by Jay Fosgitt? The words "as hit-and-miss as an auto-shotgun held by someone on a trampoline" comes to mind.

We open on Pinkie and Twi on the train to Canterlot. Celestia has summoned Pinkie personally, but Pinkie has no idea what she wants, nor does Twi. The two are meeting with Celestia, who looks awful here. Jay's super-deformed proportions are tough enough to look at, but Celestia is sitting on her throne like a human. Not only is that wrong for her, but with Jay's art style compounding the problem, she looks terrible. Celestia explains Luna is having a birthday party soon, and while Twi is to give a speech about Luna, Pinkie is in charge of the cake. Pinkie offers numerous suggestions, but Celestia shoots them down for various reasons. And of course there's a "banished to the moon" joke.

Celestia leaves but has confidence the two will do fine. Twi heads off to research her remarks on Luna, and Pinkie goes to the royal kitchens to speak to the chef. The chef gives her a workstation and full access to the royal pantry, full of baking ingredients. Pinkie's creative juices get flowing and she's soon mixing up a storm. Then, Celestia comes in, and Pinkie shuts down and gets nervous and quiet. She slips away to ask the chef what's going on, and is clued in Celestia is probably just concerned about the cake. Pinkie goes back and gets rid of Celestia, and then goes back to baking, but she's panicking over Celestia rejecting her ideas for various reasons.

Some time later Celestia comes back, and finds Pinkie... talking to Mr. Turnip and Madame La Flour. Ho boy. Celestia asks how she's doing, and Pinkie breaks down and admits she's terribly worried. Celestia says the fault is hers for placing such unrealistic expectations on her. She just wants this to be perfect for Luna; every time she looks at the night sky she remembers Nightmare Moon's banishment. Celestia knows they can't change the past, but she wants to move forward to a new future, and show Luna how much she means to her. This inspires Pinkie anew and she sets about baking, declaring she knows exactly what Celestia needs. Celestia asks if she can help, and of course Pinkie allows her to.

At Luna's party, Twi finishes her speech and is congratulated. Luna appreciates all this, but there's really no need to make her the center of attention. Then it's cake time, and Pinkie wheels in... a hideous lump of a cake with the symbol of the two sisters on either side. Seriously, Jay, Christina? All the other cool and creative designs Pinkie imagined, and you go with just a hump with some symbols on it? Oh yes; and it's marble cake. Luna tears up and hugs Celestia, thanking her for the party, and Twi tells Pinkie she knew she could pull it off.

This issue... it sucks. I like that the main problem is Celestia showing Luna how much she means to her as a sister and trying to make new, good memories after Nightmare Moon. But in pretty much every other element, this comic fails.

The pacing is awful; the story is short and dragged out needlessly. The humor is dull; very few laughs are to be had here, and for a Pinkie Pie comic, that is an inexcusable crime. The art is awful; Jay's stuff has grown on me in past issues, but here's regressed here and seems worse than ever. The character interactions are virtually non-existent. The whole point of Friends Forever is characters interacting in ways the show hasn't allowed them two, but Celestia and Pinkie share exactly two conversations here, only one of which allows any insight on their character. Pinkie spent more time talking to the chef than Celestia.

A good idea with some interesting potential, but it was squandered. This is definitely an issue to skip. Move along, bronies, nothing to see here.

Comments ( 3 )

You want to know what's really bad about all of this? Jay has admitted in interviews that when he was hired, he didn't know anything about the show, and no one on IDW bothered to tell him. So that explains why his art style is so weird, he still thinks he's drawing for a G3.5 comic.

And some people say he actually stole clip art and used it in this comic. I don't know if it's been proven though.

3524038
Take a look at the cook pony on the last page. The cutie mark is literally the first google result for "cooking whisk clipart".

This is a mediocre story made much worse by Fogsitt's terrible art. Part of the problem is they pick stories that are more slice of life and rely on the emotional growth of characters, rather than adventures for Jay. But that means the artwork is even more important to express character emotion, something Jay seems to be particularly bad at with his super-deformed style. I'm pretty sure he was heavily inspired by "Tiny Tunes Adventures," that's what the artwork reminds me of.

The story on its own is also pretty bad, its not a bad premise, there's just not enough plot to fill even a single issue, which is why they had to stretch it out with so many boring shots of the cake actually being made.

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