Cover A, by some distance the best of the regular covers |
First up, there's no getting away from the fact that Zahler's artwork looks very different from that of Andy Price. It's rather closer to the show's own style, in that shading is flatter, expressions are more limited and characters' outlines are coloured rather than black. It certainly isn't as detailed and complex as Price's, and I'm not as much of a fan as I am of his work, though it's certainly not objectionable. This is rather more what I'd expect "a My Little Pony comic" to look like if I didn't know anything at all about IDW's main series.
The story, also by Zahler, is a fairly simple one, even by one-shot standards, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The comic's blurb is unfortunately misleading, talking about Twilight going on a "quest". She doesn't; she actually spends the great majority of the comic working in a library. I'd guessed the main "secret" — that "Summer Mane" is in fact reclusive author Jade Singer in disguise — long before the end, but then Twilight had done so as well. Again, this is like the show: the ending is predictable; the fun comes in the ride to get there.
At least, it would look like the show with an actual background... |
One really major difference between this comic and the main story arc is that the Micro Series instalment is nowhere near as dark. In issue #3 in particular, the main series has some moments that are really quite grim, especially considering the main target demographic of Friendship is Magic itself. The worst we get here is when Mane/Singer decides to send Twilight home; obviously it's not exactly a happy scene, but it's a world away from some of the things Chrysalis has been up to in the main comics.
Zahler has fun with literary puns and allusions, and some of them work very well. Jade Singer is the reclusive author of Canter in the Sky, for example, and one book shown is a guide to the Marble Universe; this was the joke I laughed most at. On the other hand, the extended gag about Mane/Singer getting Twilight's name wrong in a variety of different ways ("Try-right") does start to grate eventually. The relative lack of detail in the art also precludes some of the brilliant background jokes that Price includes in his own panels.
You'd think Twilight would like old-fashioned music |
6/10
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