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''My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'' is a monthly comic book series based on the animated television show of the same name. The first issue was published in November 28, 2012 by IDW Publishing, under license from Hasbro, the parent company of the ''My Little Pony'' franchise. The series is typically written in story arcs that span either two or four issues apiece; Katie Cook and Andy Price write and illustrate the first arc, respectively, while Heather Nuhfer and Amy Mebberson perform the same on the second. A separate limited run of "Micro Series" comic stories around a single character was also ordered, with Thom Zahler writing the first issue and various writers and artists providing other series. This run ended in December 18, 2013 and has since been replaced by a second ongoing title, subtitled ''Friends Forever'' and involving single-issue stories centered on a pair of characters. ''Friends Forever'' made its debut in January 22, 2014 alongside the main series, with the first issue penned by Alex de Campi. The series provides stories based on the established fictional universe of the television show. It follows the studious Twilight Sparkle (originally a unicorn, later given wings and made an alicorn) and her friends in adventures throughout the empire of Equestria. Though the comic, like the show, is aimed at young children, the writers and artists included material to appeal to bronies, the older, predominately male fans of the show, featuring cultural references and show elements enjoyed by the older fandom. The first issue saw more than 100,000 pre-orders prior to its release, making it one of the best-selling comics of both the month and the year, requiring IDW to issue a second printing; it was only one of two non-DC or non-Marvel comics to be in the top 100 comics sold in 2012. Subsequent issues were monthly best sellers and represented IDW's highest-selling property. Journalists in the comic industry noted that with the older fans likely buying comics for the first time in many years, along with child fans purchasing comic books for the first time, the success of the ''My Little Pony'' comic could aid the ailing industry. The first issue was highly praised for capturing the spirit of the characters and presentation of the show while providing a good introduction to its mythos for those who were unfamiliar with it. ==Concept and creation== Hasbro's ''My Little Pony'' franchise, started in the 1980s, has had several animated television series and direct-to-video movies to help promote and sell the associated toy line collection; over the years, there have been four "generations" of designs and associated characters and setting. In 2010, Hasbro aimed to relaunch the ''My Little Pony'' line, following the recent success of the re-invisioning of the ''Transformers'' franchise, and brought in animator Lauren Faust as the creative developer for the show; in addition to developing the looks and characters to be featured in the toy line, Faust was also tasked with creating a new tie-in show as to provide programming for its new cable network, Discovery Family (owned by Discovery Communications and Hasbro). Faust's previous experience on shows like ''The Powerpuff Girls'' and ''Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends'' led to her developing a show that would have cross-generational appeal to young girls and the parents that would watch the show with them. Her characters were designed to challenge the norm of girl stereotypes while still keeping the archetypes as familiar figures. Faust worked with several former co-writers from her previous shows (including her husband and animator Craig McCracken), and with the directors at DHX Media/Vancouver (formerly Studio B Productions) in Vancouver, British Columbia, where the show would be produced to fill out the world. The resulting show, ''My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic'', was well received by parents, but found another unexpected target audience through the Internet photo-board, 4chan, primarily adult males from 13 to 35 years old. Quickly expanding through the Internet, the fandom came to use the term "brony" (a portmanteau of "bro" and "pony") to describe themselves. The brony fandom is attributed to Faust and her creative team for including strong characters, cross-generational appeal, cultural references, the show's expressive Flash-based animation, and the ability for the showrunners to communicate and reciprocate with the fandom, such as including fan-derived elements within the show.〔 Hasbro was also caught off-guard by this surprise demographic but have come to embrace it, using licensing deals to market clothes, media, and other merchandise beyond the toys to the older audience.〔 One such avenue was the creation of a comic series; there had previously been no mass-market ''My Little Pony'' comics, albeit it does have "stock comics" featured in various licensed children's magazines such as ''Sparkle World'', which even continues to do so. Hasbro's Director of Global Publishing Michael Kelly had introduced the idea to Hasbro following success of IDW Publishing's publications of ''G.I. Joe'' and ''Transformers'' comics, where it initially met some skepticism.〔 Kelly and IDW helped to show internally that the current iteration of the ''My Little Pony'' show was readily transferred to comics due to its style and humor.〔 Hasbro and IDW announced its licensing deal at the San Diego Comic-Con International in July 2012. Katie Cook and Andy Price were announced as the first arc's writer and illustrator, respectively; Cook had previous experience at both DC Comics and Marvel Comics, along with her own webcomic "Gronk", while Price had been involved with DC and the ''Batman Archives'' series. Cook stated that she has been a ''My Little Pony'' fan from the first generation of toys, and found that with this series, "the characters are strong and lovable, the stories are well-written, and there's an underlying sense of humor to the show that's very hip", making it a "great all-ages property". Cook aimed to write the stories for the comic to be something that she herself would enjoy "as a Pony fan and an all-ages writer", and planned to continue in the spirit of the show,〔 avoiding the feel of a "freebie ''Barbie'' comic" that would otherwise be packaged with toys. She further stated that she wanted to write an all-ages book, something that parents can share and read with their children.〔 Like the show, she had included pop cultural references that adults will get, but does not try to shoehorn these in.〔 She used the first four-story arc as a means for herself to get comfortable in writing for the characters, thus bringing back an established villain as the antagonist for the first story. Cook does plan to introduce new characters and settings in later issues.〔 She noted that the first story include dark and scary elements, but she does not consider them any darker than the show itself.〔 At the 2013 San Diego Comic Convention, Cook commented that in considering how dark to take the stories, "My personal gauge is ''Dark Crystal''. If it’s darker than the Skeksis sucking the life out of a Podling, I don’t go there." Though normally Cook would write and draw her own comics, her work in the ''My Little Pony'' comic was her first foray into writing out a script and directing others to draw out the art.〔 She expressed pleasure at working with Price has they have worked well together in the past.〔 However, Cook does continue to do some of the art; the first issue contains a short two-page comic written and drawn by herself.〔 Price himself is influenced by works of comic artists including Don Newton and José Luis García-López.〔 He himself includes some of the pop cultural references within the art beyond those written in by Cook.〔 Price noted that his popularity, measured by Twitter followed, grew explosively after the comic's announcement, and compares working on the comic to his previous efforts at DC and Marvel, "being the artist on this book is an experience completely unlike any other".〔 Price has stated that Hasbro does give them freedom to write and draw the comic as they see fit, typically only asking for changes to achieve "a little bit more show accuracy". In one case, they had a story planned that Hasbro told them was being done within the show, and had to scrap it; in another case, they had initially planned to open the first issue with the Cutie Mark Crusaders camping, but found that the show already had a similar scene, within the Season 3 episode "Sleepless in Ponyville", and altered these pages for something different.〔 Other elements of the show have been considered "off limits" for the comics until blessed by Hasbro; the villain Discord was considered one of these until the start of Season 4 of the show which changed aspects of his character, after which Hasbro allowed the comic to use the character. Price states they tried to keep their novel stories "copacetic" with the show, giving them the chance to take some risks; he stated that Hasbro was initially "scared to death" with their "Reflections" arc, which incorporate many science fiction elements such as alternate universe, but ended up pleased with the result. A "micro-series" of comics, each with a single-issue story centered around the main six characters, was an idea born out from comic writer Thom Zahler. At the time of the main comic series announcement at the 2012 Comic-Con, Zahler had interest in doing cover art for the series, and approached IDW editor Bobby Curnow at the Con about his interest. Curnow later contacted Zahler and asked him to pitch stories for a smaller series; one such pitch included a crossover with ''Mars Attacks!'' penned during a convention panel in Baltimore. Though Zahler had pitched stories for all the main characters, he ultimately was the author for the Twilight comic.〔 Zahler stated that prior to the comics he had seen a few episodes, and considered the characters as developed by Faust to be "wonderfully represented" and that the show itself had "a very classic cartoon element" that made cross-generational writing easy to do.〔 Cook herself wrote the third micro-issue featuring Rarity, and saw the single-issue format as more like "episodes of the TV show" compared to the larger arcs of the main series, and can be "slice-of-life stories that really explore the character" without bringing in the full cast. Three additional 48-page comics have been released to date, under the title ''My Little Pony Annual''. The first served as a tie-in to the 2013 feature film ''My Little Pony: Equestria Girls''; published on October 30, 2013, it contains two prequel stories set before the events of that film. The second, published on September 24, 2014, is an offshoot of "Power Ponies," an episode from the fourth season of the ''Friendship Is Magic'' television series. The third served as a tie-in to the 2014 feature film ''My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks'', published on December 17, 2014, it contains two sequel stories set after the events of that film. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (comic book)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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