REVIEW: Friendship is Magic comic series (issue #1)

[brendala]

I bought the first issue of IDW’s MLP: Friendship is Magic comic book series. So I thought I’d give you guys a small, spoiler-free review of it.

The Covers:

This issue has a TON of variant covers. A few were even extra expensive for whatever reason. I was torn between getting the Rarity cover (since she’s my favorite) and the Twilight cover (because I thought it looked the best). I opted for Twilight

Cool story, bro….
My comic book store had a whole bunch of issues on the shelf. Like, half a shelf was dominated by this one issue and all it’s variant covers. And the clerk told me that it’s been selling very well so far. So, yay for that!

Here are the ads listing all the variant covers:

In case you’re wondering, the RI and Subscription covers were the hella expensive ones.

And I wish I had known about the Midtown and Lonestar exclusive covers before I bought mine (both of those stores are GREAT for online comic shopping and I highly recommend them!)

The story:

I can’t say much about the plot without spoiling anything (I went in totally blind and was pleasantly surprised by all the twists). But I will say that it’s well done and does a great job of capturing the spirit of the cartoon. This particular issue was action packed and flowed at a great pace (and the lack of any ads breaking up the main story helped this a great deal). This storyline has a heavy focus on action over fluffiness. And while the action kicks ass; I hope we get to see more light character interaction in later issues.

The art:

I LOVED it. This issue used two different artists and they both did a great job. I was a bit worried that this series would be using vectors and aping the style of the show. But the artists they chose did a great job of putting their own spin on the characters while still keeping them appealing and recognizable.

Oh, and I’m editing out the context of some of these scans to minimize spoilers (and because it’s funnier when taken out of context) :

HOLY CAMEO SPLASH PAGE, BATMAN!!!!!

And I'm thinking about putting this image on my NRA membership card. ^_^


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In short, I HIGHLY recommend picking this book up! I loved it and currently have it added to my comic shop pull list.

Comments

[earthstar-moon.livejournal.com]

I've been wondering if I should get it, and I think you just settled that for me. I'm glad the artists were able to spin their own style for the comic. While I love the style of the series, it probably wouldn't translate well for comic book form.