Friday 22 January 2016

Georgia Ball and the problems with the Rarity/Gilda Friends Forever

(Thanks to moody magpie on UK of Equestria for the heads-up on this.)

A few days ago, I reviewed Friends Forever #24, which I didn't find a particularly brilliant comic. Part of that was because I find American football boring, but part was because I was unimpressed with the use of characters (eg Greta) who looked absolutely nothing like their on-screen equivalents. Well, it turns out that I wasn't the only one.

It's not often that I link to a Horse News article, but this one is worth reading. Remember that I complained about the new cover design that makes the creators' names tiny? On top of that, Georgia Ball's name was misspelt as "Bell" – there and in the inside-cover credits. She wasn't very happy about that, nor about the off-model character designs, and rightly so.

And Ball isn't planning on pitching anything else for Pony, as this Twitter conversation reveals. It's also pretty clear that she is not desperately happy with Jay Fosgitt's lack of research, and I can't blame her. I like Fosgitt's style – the Dash/'Shy FF was wonderful – but this really isn't on. We're talking about basic research.

I go back and read the early MLP comics occasionally, and while I don't think the fall in average quality is as bad as 4chan likes to make out, the fact is that the gems are rarer than they were. Will we ever get another arc that produces non-stop laughs in the way "Zen and the Art of Gazebo Maintenance" or the Rarity micro did?

This franchise needs some TLC, and it needs it now. Over to you, Bobby Curnow.

1 comment:

  1. Looking at this...I feel so sorry for Georgia Ball, and if I were in charge of IDW, I'd fire Fosgitt.

    The editor also screwed up Georgia Ball's name, after they screwed up "Siege" in Siege part 4, calling it "Seige?" Bobby Curnow, the editor, didn't even check that, so I don't trust him.

    And from what I've heard, IDW, people like Jeremy Whitley and such block people who criticize their work...that happened with Siege from what I heard, if you want, I'll provide you links. People are saying though that at least Georgia isn't like that.

    That comment with saying about Celestia and Luna being opposite colors reminds me of when Luna tried to disguise herself as Celestia once in Reflections, which sadly IMO was one of IDW's last gems. Rarity Micro was awesome too.

    I've seen comments like this also: http://horsenews.tumblr.com/post/132696347410/confirmed-for-clipart

    And it looks like to me that even Friends Forever is falling downhill, though I've never read the series yet...

    IMO the G1 MLP comic series is now superior at the moment.

    On the plus side, I did find these news though (I dunno if this person knows anything about the MLP series or not though): http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VDqXhJw8Rfw/VK3wH5SKTZI/AAAAAAAACLE/amN60ilCgJA/s1600/sioudfn.png

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