writing characters you hate · 7:43pm Dec 4th, 2016
watching the Bronycon recorded video of the comic creators panel
at one point Jenn Blake teases Andy Price about his favorite superhero, then escalates it by mocking his favorite pony. fist fight banter happens.
Andy Price: I'm gonna rank the ponies. Applejack, in capital letters. Then... Rarity, Fluttershy, Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie. Spacebar spacebar spacebar. Rainbow Dash.
Ah hah! I totally guessed that in my review!!!!!
Except it was in a section I edited out, so nobody ever saw it. 
I'll rewrite that critique here.
I was examining the "Return of Queen Chrysalis" arc, where in the 3rd issue the ponies split into three groups temporarily. Applejack & Rarity was written perfectly - very funny and charming. Fluttershy & Twilight was okay - a little stereotypical but nothing too bad. Pinkie Pie & Rainbow Dash was just plain awful - they're both out of character and awkward.
The entire arc is full of bad examples of writing Pinkie and Rainbow. Cook didn't know how to use them, and probably didn't want to either. I suppose Price felt the same way since they work so closely as a team.
Pinkie Pie is constantly making wacky jokes in this arc, and none are funny. It took me a while to figure out why they were all so bad. She's joking TO the audience, going off on non-sequitor tangents, with many cartoon-logic gags about pulling cakes or costumes out of nowhere. And everypony in the story responds with "wtf?" 
and then eye-rolling 
Sure, the show always used Pinkie for 4th wall and meta-humor, but the main idea of the character is that she's joking TO her friends. She's sharing laughter, uplifting those around her, not playing the bumbling comic relief for the audience's sake. Eeeeeven if her friends aren't laughing but staring blankly at her, which happens often too (did ANY of the Mane 6 actually like her in season 1? they seem to resent her! now I can't blame her for going paranoid in "Party of One"). so her jokes can fall flat too, but the point here is that she has good intentions in mind.
and my impression of the meta-humor is that those are the times she's completely serious and not trying to make her friends laugh. I can't think of examples at the moment.
for a positive example, I noticed how Heather Nuhfer wrote Pinkie. This version makes jokes by reacting to what the others say or do, and invites others to join in the humor. she actually seems like a friend, part of the group.
Next. Why is Rainbow Dash written badly? She's the annoyed "straight mare" in the shared mind of Cook & Price, for some bizarre reason. First off, Rainbow is there to act confused and tired at all of Pinkie's 4th wall humor. She's also telling Twilight she's being overly nerdy. She tells Fluttershy to stop being a wimp and help fight the changlings. To Rarity, stop being so obsessed with fashion. She's sarcastic at Spike showing up late at the end.
she can't snark at Applejack, because that one's already the natural straight mare of the group, glaring at Rainbow when she's being an idiot. but I guess Applejack is too busy flirting with Rarity to keep the rest of the group focused on the mission, so it was up to Rainbow Dash to be the local party pooper.
isn't this completely backwards? the point of the character is to be proactive! she takes action, relying on her friends to do the thinking. she speeds up when everyone else wants to slow down. she's basically Kamina from TTGL. 
how does one mess up such a simple character that badly? even when Rainbow's being a jerk in episodes of the show, she's still showing her positive traits. Cook and Price seem to dislike her so much they can't even see her good side. remember the Little Golden Books parody issue, about Rainbow's terrible day? Still a great issue, but nothing likeable about her there, she's just a bitchy grump the entire time.
so there you go, in case you thought the earlier review of Cook & Price was overly positive. they're still a great team, but only when writing characters they love.
...Wow. I never noticed that about Pinkie and Dash before. Now that I think about it, yeah, Cook and Price handle them poorly.
For instance, I just read Chrysalis Fiendship is Magic, and I was, among other things, irritated at how many times Pinkie just said something crazy that wasn't funny and everyone reacted with totally unpredictable confusion and or deadpan expressions. But I didn't attach it to Cook and Price as a flaw in writing Pinkie.
Aaaaaaand now I do.
Good analysis ^.^
4347678
Oh yeah, that one is a great example, now I wish I'd used it. Notice how Fluttershy and Twilight are..... not bad, but rather stereotypical.
Rarity gets all the genuinely funny jokes: the mirror, the date.
and Chrysalis is flat-out perfect. It's not hard to guess that she's their favorite villain.
4347709
Yeah. Man, I don't know if I'll be able to read them the same way now.