IDW G5 Kenbucky Roller Derby #3

[ZakuConvoy]

Previously, on My Little Pony...

Zipp! Stop! If you don't, Sunny will go full on Pony Life on us! No one wants that!


Get ready for a real swerve, it's time for more Kenbucky Roller Derby!

So, how is it?

Well, the first thing you might notice once you open up the book is that we have a new artist this issue. This is the same artist from the Camp Bighoof miniseries. So...if you followed what I thought of that miniseries...you know how I feel about this style of artwork. And, look, the artist for the first two issues probably just couldn't do a monthly schedule, I get that. But...I wish they had found someone else to fill in for the second half of this miniseries.

But, the artist is...trying. There's a attempt at making the characters expressive. Sometimes it works, and other times they look like they just got done staring directly into the sun all afternoon. It's probably a step up from the work on the Camp Bighoof miniseries. But, it's just a bit of a step down from the last few issues of this particular miniseries.

But, the writing is still good. It's clever. It's got fun lines. Things happen. This issue is mostly a flashback focusing on Tracy's backstory, so we learn more about this new character. It's told pretty well, and it keeps things interesting enough for a single issue.

Overall, I think is a okay issue. The sudden change in artist mid-miniseries is jarring, but it doesn't ruin the issue for me. It's going to be weird when this story is eventually collected in trade, but for right now, it's acceptable. These things happen.

Spoiler

"Oh this? It's just a albatross around my neck, reminding me of one of my deepest regrets of my entire derby career." A trauma souvenir? Neat! My trauma souvenir is my old college ID!

"You mean bird-en" Izzy will never let a pun pass her by, no matter how inappropriate it is for the moment.

I think if more people were reading this comic, there would be TONS of fan-art of Wyld Oats. A goth roller derby pony? Yeah, she'd have fans.

Sugar3...Sugar Cubed...ugh...that's such a nerdy name. I kind of love it. And Sugar is SO huggy around Tracy! It is pretty...sweet.

Honestly, all of the members of Tracy's old team have real "winners" for names. Whinny Streak. Gal-Up. Someone spent a full week thinking up horse puns. I appreciate it!

I can't tell if this flashback is supposed to be taking place in the "80s" or the "90s"? The big hair references feel like a 80s thing. But, the backgrounds they use remind me more of Saved By the Bell, which I consider more of a 90s thing.

"We'll WHEELY miss you" Oof, that pun came out of nowhere and body-checked me.

And of course, Tracy tries to use a over-complicated rejected move from the old team captain and gets everyone on her team hurt because of it.

"Skate-ality" You shouldn't joke, I'm pretty sure that really was in the newest Mortal Kombat.

Well, one of the girls has a bum leg, now. You know what you got to do. *gestures out back*

Tracy's room is surprisingly girly. Given her "cowgirl" vibe, I expected something more rugged, I guess.

"Wait, what's THAT?!" "Back in those days, phones had cords on 'em" Young whipper-snappers not knowing their history! Why back in MY day...phones with cords WERE back in my day! *SIGH* I still OWN corded phones, for goodness sake! They're not THAT old *cuddles with his old phone*

And so, it turns out that the move they've been trying to do was created with Tracy in mind. She hadn't been joining in with the practice and THAT'S why it didn't work. Not because it was overly complicated and dangerous for those who tried it. No siree!

So, Tracy's old team loses the competition. And Tracy wants to quit, but everyone wants her to stay on the team and they have a big group hug. D'awww...

...But, then she retires from the team a little later, anyway. That's...a little weird. I get the feeling Hasbro didn't want them to do TOO sad of a story, so they forced them to change it to a happier ending. Which doesn't really make sense for the story they're telling. It just makes things weird that everyone forgives Tracy and still likes her, but she just leaves them all anyway. But...meh?

 

[CoffeeHorse]

I'm caught up on this arc, and I don't know. The story isn't doing anything for me. The interesting thing was seeing the attempt to adapt TYT's art style, and it was sometimes working, and then this artist comes along and everything becomes pain.

Maybe I was just too much of an indoor kid for this arc.

 

[ZakuConvoy]

I think the regular artist is back next issue? Maybe? We'll see.

As for the story, I'm enjoying it in a "Extremely Goofy Movie" sort of way? Sunny deciding she really wants to be a competitive roller derby-deer is kind of random. But...meh, it makes the story go. It's functional. And the dialogue is joke-filled enough to keep my attention.

And I'm 3 issues into this 5 issue miniseries. I'm finishing it one way or another, by GUM!

 

[CoffeeHorse]

I'm just finding it a boring conflict on top of the problem that we've seen how good Sunny is on wheels. Five issues for a boring (to me anyway) story that maybe shouldn't even be happening.

 

[ZakuConvoy]

Yeah, I'll admit, this does feel like a story that could have fit into a single issue. Maybe two. That's part of the problem with going with the series-of-miniseries model. There's less chances to do little one-off stories.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

Series-of-miniseries doesn't mean everything has to be a miniseries. G1 had single episodes between all the four-parters. It was a good format.

 

[ZakuConvoy]

I feel like there's less interest in doing something like that in comics, though. Sure, you could just put out a few more one-shots or something, but then they feel like those have to be extra long or have a theme. I don't know if they really have to be myself. But I can see how it's harder to sell a one-shot, if it's not something "special" and just a random slice of life story instead. And I don't know how those sell compared to a miniseries. And then you have to figure out how you want to collect those stories later.

They did put out quite a few one-shots a while ago. Maybe that was them trying out the one-shot format to see how it worked for them. And now they're trying this.

I mean, technically this very issue sort of IS one of those "shorter stories", right between issues. It's like a single episode sandwiched between two two-parters. Maybe that's even the idea. Maybe they're trying to experiment with the format a little.

Maybe they're just trying out a bunch of different formats to see what works for them? IDW does seem to be experimenting with MLP a little lately. I hope they find something that works for them, eventually.

I guess it's just hard to get people to shell out $4 for slice of life stories. Especially when you aren't really allowed to change anything. You really are left with trying to go "big" or trying to hit some emotional beats every issue, which is hard to do every time.

But, back on topic a little, I can sympathize with a story going on longer than you want if it's just not something you're enjoying. The G5 ongoing had a lot more variety and a quicker pace. I liked that most of the stories were one-shots, too. I think that worked better for MLP, overall. I guess the sales just dropped off too much to support a ongoing, though. And there just aren't a lot of miniseries that are basically 5 one-shot slice of life stories. Although, maybe that's something they could try. I don't see why not.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

I think the solution is an ongoing with arcs and one-shots. Those one-shots don't have to be special. They're just issues. That also helps the arcs too, because then there's no need to stretch them to a particular "proper" miniseries length. They could be however long they want to be. IDW could still sell separate miniseries (and I would hope so), but not every story that's too long for 1 issue would suddenly need to be stretched to four or five. It would only be a problem when it's time to chop things up for a trade. Oh well. Plan ahead.

The problem with the ongoing we got was basically the Fallout problem. There was a nagging dissonance that hung over the whole thing. It's not that the one-shots weren't fun. That's where a lot of the fun was. The problem is they occurred within a nominally ongoing arc that the characters really should have been treating more urgently. That didn't work.