It took at least 2 beers and every last ounce of my manly-manliness to convince myself to write this review of MY LITTLE PONY: FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC #1. I'm a strong proponent of children's comic books and collect quite a few of them myself (like MEGA MAN and ADVENTURE TIME) and when the sales numbers for MLP #1 came out and pre-orders for #1 exceeded 90K copies...Well, I thought it was only fair to do my duty as a comic collector...I'll read the issue and give it a fair shake.
The story is pretty straight forward. Some of the ponies have been cast under a spell and it's up to the other ponies to figure out what's causing it to happen. It's a self-contained single issue written by Katie Cook, who has worked on titles such as STAR WARS, FRAGGLE ROCK and LORD OF THE RINGS with art by Andy Price. There's lots of dialogue throughout the book and the cartoony artwork by Andy Price takes a little getting used to...but really captures the feel of the cartoon. (Not that I've ever WATCHED the cartoon, mind you. I've just seen the commercial.) But as a parent myself, I think it's a fairly intelligent read for kids.
But listen...don't get mad at me for choosing this book to review. If you want to point the fingers at just WHY this comic is probably going to be the surprise hit of 2012, I encourage you to talk to retailers that made exclusive covers for you to collect. As of this writing, there are almost 20 variant covers to this book. That's right. You heard what you heard. That HAD to help get that benchmark of 90K+. But blame it on the retailers or blame it on the "Bronies" or blame it on an industry gone MAD. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic #1 might..JUST MIGHT..need to be in your collection.*
*Individual collections may vary.