spoiler Friends Forever #15 you get my love

[graceface 79]

Hello Everypony!

 

I Just read this months issue of the friend's forever arch and I must say I am rather happy with the experience.

first of all the cover is what made me pick it up in the first place. it amused me greatly and I grinned like an idiot in the comic shop for a couple minutes before deciding I needed to read this

I know right? AJ looks so mad! what could make our level headed pony so flippin mad? And Mayor Mare seem's so oblivious right?

right?

Anyway I jumped right in and what was the story about? Apple Jack getting a citation for her barn

being to tall and her having to deal with PONY BUREAUCRACY!!! dun dun dun.  It was imediatly funny and something I could relate to  because, going to any government office to get anything done is a pain and we have to go at some point for one reason or another.

 

The Mayor saves AppleJack from the line and leads her to go with her, she can help with that 

nasty citation, but she needs some of Aj's help first.  Applejack (kinda) agrees to go with the Mayor and she continuously helps with problems with efficiency and other things around town all day. Mayor Mare ends up dragging Aj around most of the day ...

 

until sweetie bell turns everyone into vegetables and fruit

...

Yeah that's right veggies and fruit

 

So Applejack saves the day and  the two go sit down for a breath. You get a good little story 

about the mayor running for office the first time and she talks about her love for Ponyville. I loved how AppleJack connected with the Mayor's love for her town and her desire to help the pony folk. The Mayor even talked about how she thinks Aj reminds her of herself as a younger pony.

 

What do you guys think of Mayor Mare's opinion of AppleJack? I kind of like the idea of her

ending up running for Mayor when she is older.  Still In charge of the farm of course, but I really think she could do both jobs effectively. if any one has the compassion and drive to do it it would be her.

 

 

Over all I enjoys the comic The pacing was mostly good, even though the thing with sweetie bell was never explained and felt a little obsurd . And I loved the character interaction between AJ and Mayor Mare.  What did you all think?

 

[Ashen Pathfinder 16,151]

While I thought the comic started good, I was left...confused.

 

1. The whole deal with Sweetie Belle and the produce spell irritated me. We have no idea how it began, nor any idea how it was dealt with. It's just explained away. Normally something like this doesn't bother me, but it feels almost lazy. It happened, it affected the town and even AJ's friends (Princess Twilight included), and we're given nothing.

 

2. The overall moral feels lost. We start with AJ getting a citation, she goes to get it corrected, then we go on this tour of City Hall. Did Mayor Mare intentionally mislead AJ to get her to come and bring common sense to the local government?

 

3. The pacing felt...strange. I don't know how to explain it, but it felt like we jumped from one thing to another.

 

4. The conclusion was all right, but I wasn't satisfied.

 

In the end...I may have to read it again to get a better picture of it, but overall...I felt lost.

[OtakuBrony 349]

Howdy all!

 

I picked up the comic yesterday and AJ getting super angry was funny.

 

Though another thing got me scratching my head.

 

The mayor introduces herself to AJ and the cowgirl pony did the same.

 

I guess the writers forgot to watch season 1 episode Applebuck season as AJ saved Ponyville before.

 

Mayor Mare gave her a trophy.

(as Pinkie would say DUH! Since she know who she is & such)

 

 Never the less vol.15 was pretty good.

 

(Cant wait for Vol.16 featuring Diamond Tiara & Silver Spoon)

 

See ya!

[ConcorDisparate 385]

 

 

I guess the writers forgot to watch season 1 episode Applebuck season as AJ saved Ponyville before.

 

I thought the same, but I think it's too obvious to be a mistake

 

However, what about the moment when she calls her friends to help ? The eggplant is Twilight, right ?

Notice we don't see Twilight in her pony form though. Maybe that's some kind of joke from the authors.

Quite confusing though.

[graceface 79]

While I thought the comic started good, I was left...confused.

 

1. The whole deal with Sweetie Belle and the produce spell irritated me. We have no idea how it began, nor any idea how it was dealt with. It's just explained away. Normally something like this doesn't bother me, but it feels almost lazy. It happened, it affected the town and even AJ's friends (Princess Twilight included), and we're given nothing.

 

2. The overall moral feels lost. We start with AJ getting a citation, she goes to get it corrected, then we go on this tour of City Hall. Did Mayor Mare intentionally mislead AJ to get her to come and bring common sense to the local government?

 

3. The pacing felt...strange. I don't know how to explain it, but it felt like we jumped from one thing to another.

 

4. The conclusion was all right, but I wasn't satisfied.

 

In the end...I may have to read it again to get a better picture of it, but overall...I felt lost.

Yeah the sweetie bell thing irritated me the most.

and i see where it looks like the moral is lost...i dont even think I found a moral.    But I did enjoy the interaction between the Mayor and AJ...alot XD

 

I wish they had just a few more pages to solidify everything 

[Castle Bleck 19,167]

Sweetie Belle is OP.

 

Please nerf, writers.

Edited April 7, 2015 by A.V.

[Montag 3]

Yeah the sweetie bell thing irritated me the most.

and i see where it looks like the moral is lost...i dont even think I found a moral.    But I did enjoy the interaction between the Mayor and AJ...alot XD

 

I wish they had just a few more pages to solidify everything 

It seems pretty clear to me that this comic was not interested in telling a coherent story, nor making it's world belivable. 

 

It's pure whacky humor for whacky humor's sake. It's something that a lot of the comics lean towards anyway for better or worse (mostly worse in my opinion).

[guest243535531ty43 219]

I didn't like the Sweetie Belle part either because it didn't have an explanation or clear resolution, but I could see that some of the humor may have come from the idea that other ponies in Ponyville have interesting and possibly just as interesting daily events as the major characters that the show focuses on more (in this case the CMC) and how the antics of the major characters can completely turn a Ponyville resident's day around without any explanation of what's going on, why, or what needs to be done. 

 

The humor didn't really stick though for me so the scene just seemed odd and a way to wrap the comic up.

[Banul 3,831]

They needed a problem for Mayor Mare to solve and they came up with turning the town into vegetables? 

 

Regardless, I really enjoyed this issue. The moral got a little muddled in the end, but I found the whole thing very amusing. 

[FlutterDash4072 189]

Gotta agree with you guys on the Sweetie Belle thing. It was still a good comic, but when you've got one comic to tell a story, every page is too precious to waste on a plot point like that.

[Simon 4,554]

A bit late to the party here, but I just picked this up at BABSCon and read it just now.  I really wish this comic had a few revisions before it saw print.  It started off as a nice concept... Applejack gets hit with a bit of bureaucracy and Mayor Mare decides to introduce AJ to government work.  Could be a nice place for a commentary on overcoming bureaucracy, or maybe just a kid-friendly introduction to government work.  Instead what we're given is Mayor Mare showing off the inefficiency and incompetency of government, AJ wandering in and saving the day by solving problems everybody in government is too stupid to solve themselves, and we're left agreeing that Ponyville is run by a bunch of idiots.  Then we get random government people doing random things to save Ponyville from turning into the produce aisle at Walmart, and suddenly AJ is a big fan of government.

 

Few things...

 

(1) The moral of the story seems to be "Who cares about running things inefficiently if we can all band together in times of crisis".  That's a pretty bizarre moral to be teaching kids... it's like having an episode where they explain it's alright to procrastinate on your homework as long as you still pull a passing grade together at the end of the course!  How about instead of excusing incompetency for the sake of comedic effect, the comic took a turn and actually left us with a proper moral of always trying to be the best we can be?  Maybe actually have Mayor Mare learn from AJ that the government can be run more efficiently.

 

(2)  Continuity with show please.  It always bothers me when you have continuity errors between the comics and the show.  First of all, we have Mayor Mare not knowing who AJ is.  What the hell is that?  I'll refrain from the obvious opportunity for a best background pony joke here and get straight to the point... AJ along with the others in the mane 6 have saved Ponyville from all sorts of disaster... Mayor Mare gave AJ a huge send off in the Last Roundup.  And more importantly the Apple family has been in Ponyville since it's foundation.  And suddenly Mayor Mare doesn't recognize AJ?  Come on.  Another more minor nitpick is the whole foundation for this comic is AJ complaining because the barn is receiving this citation when it's the oldest barn in Ponyville... do we really need to do the tour of the barn rebuilds again?  If it's the oldest barn in Ponyville that's only cause it's the only one.  That thing gets rebuilt every week.

 

These things seem nitpicky, but it really takes me out of the comic when they have these sorts of glaring continuity issues that could easily be removed from the comic.  There's no reason we need Mayor Mare to not recognize her, it'd work just as well if Mayor Mare said "Oh hi Applejack, how are you doing today".  Similarly, AJ could have been complaining because the rule was stupid, not because it's old and that makes laws not apply to her.

 

(3) Vegetable ponies.  Do I need elaboration?  I think not.

 

(4) The one flaw of the comics that I've seen is that they tend to have far more unfinished side stories for the sake of gags than the show.  Cook & Price have become masterful at this by the inclusion of mini-comics at the end.  They'll put in a small side gag story without much development leaving us wanting more, and then include a mini-comic at the end tying up that story.  It's an extremely artful and masterful way of engaging the reader in a really fun side-story that otherwise wouldn't be told.  These mini-comics have become truly exciting for me to see as they not only always prove to be delightful little reads, but they also are a place for the IDW folks to explore different art styles, different story telling styles, and all sorts of very unique things.  

 

I'd have loved to see a mini-comic at the end about vegetable people, Twilight seeing the statue, or an explanation of that weird cookie jar thing that got shoved at the end without reason, or any of the other unfinished stories in there, but instead the comic leaves me with far more questions than answers, which leaves me wanting more in a bad way because they'll never put out the comic I want to see.

 

(5) The conclusion.  I've already basically said this one in my discussion of the moral, but it was so bad it's worth repeating.  The whole idea of AJ's entire perspective changing cause of a single isolated incident seems very rushed and bizarre.  Perspective changes are fine, but the connection between curing vegetable ponies from vegetableness and the handling of paperwork seems forced and bizarre.

 

Overall, the comic is enjoyable, but very strange.  It sort of has the feel of the Rainbow Dash micro comic, and that's not a compliment.  Like the Rainbow Dash micro, it is a fun read, but little more than that.  It doesn't offer any quality character development or story, and I can only appreciate it as a source for some funny gags.  It's probably not a comic I'll read again any time soon, but I'm glad they at least tried to do something with these two as it was fun to see them interact.