Tags
Coco Pommel, Everything Old, Fluttershy, IDW, IDW comic, My Little Pony, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, opinion, Rarity, review
Synopsis:
Rarity and Fluttershy are both bound for Manehattan for different reasons. Rarity is looking for new creative inspiration from the latest fashions, while Fluttershy is attending her first Animal Shelter Symposium. Unfortunately, things don’t go too well for either individual. Rarity is shocked and appalled to discover that fashion has cycled around to “noveau colour” (translation: 1980s styled), and is dismayed since this was the first fashion style she ever worked on and fears she’ll do nothing but rehash her old designs. Fluttershy gets a not-so-pleasant first day of experience at the symposium when it involves nothing but going over rules and regulations that she had no idea even existed, let alone needed to set up before she even opened a shelter. Both mares find end up going to Coco Pommel with their respective woes, but when Fluttershy mentioned if she knew now what she did then she would have done things differently, Rarity takes that as inspiration to use her experience to avoid making the same mistakes she made on her first time through the “noveau colour” design experience. Working with Coco and employing Fluttershy as a model, she ends up making a whole new line of amazing designs. With that task done, Fluttershy is ready to dismally head back to the hotel to start reading up on regulations she missed, until Rarity encourages her by pointing out how she was able to make a functional animal shelter from scratch. Inspired by this, when Fluttershy returns to the symposium, she states how it should spend less time focusing on what she should have done getting started and more time on passing on lessons from their own mistakes to help ponies start newer shelters; earning the admiration of the symposium. The story concludes with everypony heading to a Spring Fashion sneak peek show put on by Rarity, and both she and Fluttershy learn a lesson about the importance of personal experience in learning from the past and not repeating it.
Review:
What I noticed with many of these, particularly ones that were created by Andy Price, is that he tones up the maturity of the storytelling a little bit. Not necessarily in terms of violence or content, but in terms of the universe. With all of the constant allusions and details he incorporates in the background, whether it’s a symposium or a big city or a political conference or whatever, everything always seems a bit more fleshed out and mature. The overall story seems to take place in a far more realistic setting and world and doesn’t let itself get away with so much Y-rated content.
A good case in point is this particular comic. There isn’t a whole lot that the series would normally be able to do with Rarity trying to do a new fashion line (other than, perhaps, the story in “Made in Manehattan”) or Fluttershy attending an Animal Shelter Symposium, but the comic, which can be geared to any age it wants, is able to go a bit further with some of those concepts and ideas and expect a little more thought work from its audience. The result is a world that seems to not always be so much about magic and friendship and parties and colors but also about trends and regulations and forms and fashion magazines. It’s a subtle way of showing just how much more the comic is orientated toward the older audience.
At any rate, as for this story itself, it’s another one that’s rather drama-heavy and doesn’t focus so much on the action that’s taking place (aside from maybe the clothing montage with Fluttershy reprising her old role as model). It’s a bit of an odd one that spends a lot of time centered around a joke only older audiences would get, namely the outrageous fashion styles of the 80s. By comparison, Fluttershy’s own arc with the symposium only gets a few pages. The lesson it teaches is another pretty good one about personal experiences but, yet again, is one that I’m not sure younger audiences would be able to grasp fully. With all of that in mind, this is yet another one of those storylines that is kind of an odd place as I’m not sure the original target audience would get it, but I’m not sure it’s dramatic enough for the older audience to fully appreciate either.
Like many comic storylines, I think it’s alright. Just…not a whole lot to it beyond that.
Fun Facts:
Since most Andy Price comics are stuffed with background jokes, many of which are pony versions of real world things, you may have noticed I’ve tried to cut back on pointing them all out. However, I will note that “Bridleway” is running the show “Celestia Superstar” again.
One of the newspapers indicates that a copycat “Mare Do Well” is running around crimefighting in Manehattan.
One of the books Fluttershy has to read for the animal shelter is “Shark Care Made Easy” by “M. Hooper”. Matt Hooper was the name of the oceanographer and one of the three principle characters in the movie/novel “Jaws”.
In the memory bubble of Fluttershy’s animal shelter, she has a shark tank marked “Bruce”, an allusion to “Finding Nemo”. She also has a raven named “Edgar”, likely a reference to Edgar Allen Poe and his famous poem. Finally, she has a beagle that is laying on top of its doghouse, a reference to Snoopy from the “Peanuts” gang.
Rating:
2.5 Stars out of 5