Obviously not actually me, as there is only one remote in the picture…Several years ago I was reading about the new shows coming out the next season, and one, The Big Bang Theory, sounded like exactly the sort of show that I would hate. So I didn’t make any attempt to watch any episodes. Not very long after the season started, I heard from a few different acquaintances that it was not a good show. The specific comments were that it made fun of nerds by portraying them in completely exaggerated, stereotypical, and unrealistic ways. So I continued to ignore it for all of the first season.
And then another nerdy/geek/fannish friend happened to mention, midway through the second season, that he was strangely addicted to the show. I mentioned the reasons I had assumed I wouldn’t like it, and he said, “Oh, me too!” Then he explained how his wife (a person who has been even more immersed in fannish culture than either her hubby or me) had watched the first season on Netflix. “I tried to ignore, and work on stuff on my computer. But it kept making me laugh… and it usually made me laugh because the characters acted exactly like some of our friends.”
This adorable corgi plushie is my table mascot this year.I’m having a good time at the convention. I haven’t slept in very much, but I seldom do when running a dealer’s table at a con.
This year, in addition to the usual copies of fanzines full of anthropomorphic science fiction, we are also selling an anthology of fiction produced by another publisher, My Little Pony blind bags, buttons designed by my husband, satirical bumper stickers designed by me, trading cards based on the fanzine project, badge ribbons, and t-shirts.
Though it would be more accurate to say we are offering all of those things for sale. As there hasn’t been a lot of actual purchasing happening at the table this year.
Thursday I sold mostly blind bag ponies and buttons. Friday the big mover was the badge ribbons. Oh! And all the My Little Pony coloring books (I only had three left after Everfree NW) also went on Thursday.
I’ve had good traffic at the table, and a few interesting conversations. I also got a decent amount of writing done Friday.
I’ve been having more fun, as usual, hanging out with friends for meals or up in our hotel room after the dealer’s den closes.
I did have a surprise visit from Julie. She and her mother had returned from a trip to London and Paris, and after Julie dropped her mom off at the airport, she came over to the convention hotel. Someone from con staff sent someone into the dealer’s den to tell me Julie was out at the door. She dropped off Lucky Tuppence coins for several of us, and showed me a tiny fraction of the photos she took on the trip.
I didn’t know Bobbie really well. I mean everyone knew Bobbie. If there was a sci fi/fantasy/nerdie convention in the region, Bobbie had been on staff at one time or other. If she wasn’t on staff at a particular convention, she was either volunteering, or helping someone presenting at the con, or helping run someone’s table in the dealer’s den, or helping run someone’s fan club table, or she was running a fan table that was raising support for a WorldCon bid.
We were never on staff at the same convention the same year, but we interacted frequently. Either she would be in charge of a department I was interacting with as an attendee or a guest, or I was working in a department of another con where she needed to work with me as an attending or panelist or guest. A few years ago she wound up running a table in a dealer’s den selling artwork by a mutual friend, and it was the table right next to mine. So we finally got to have conversations that lasted more then a few minutes, and most of them weren’t about a problem that needed solving or an event that one of us was rushing off to.
So while I think it would be wrong to say we were great friends, we were more than merely acquaintances.
Of course, Bobbie was a very friendly person, so it was difficult to come away from the most superficial interaction without feeling you’d just spent time with a friend.
I mentioned that she often seemed to be working on a WolrdCon bid. WorldCon is the annual convention of the World Science Fiction Society, and is held in various cities around the world. Each con is run by a separate committee, and to get the right to host the con is a complicated process involving setting up a bid committee, drumming up support by selling advance memberships, and putting together a formal proposal which will be voted on at a WorldCon a couple of years before your proposed hosting date. It’s not a small undertaking, and you’re competing against other groups from literally all over the world (this year’s was in Texas, next year’s is in London, and recent cons have been in Japan, Australia, Canada…).
A few weeks ago the vote for 2015 WorldCon was held, and the Spokane committee was chosen. The co-chairs had subsequently been announced, and one of them was Bobbie.
It was a great triumph.
Then, this morning, my various social networks started sprouting mentions of Bobbie’s death. She hadn’t been sick, as far as any of us knew, so everyone was asking, “What happened?”
At the moment, all we know is that she died peacefully in her sleep, it was a complete surprise to her family. They aren’t going to know the cause for a while, and the family has asked that we all give them some space to deal with the shock on their own.
I was really looking forward to having a WorldCon practically in our backyard, and I was especially psyched because I knew several of the people who will be running it, so I was happy for all of them. Especially Bobbie.
Now, I just want to find Fate and give it a few swift kicks.
I lot of people were sharing a blog post last week by Gavin Aung Than called “BILL WATTERSON: A cartoonist’s advice.” Watterson is the creator of Calvin and Hobbes, and Than being a web cartoonist, has long admired him. I read someone else’s re-blog of the text and tweeted it out to my followers. I didn’t realize that the text was only part of the post. He also drew a comic in Bill Watterson’s style, using excerpts for a commencement speech Watterson gave way back in 1990.
It’s an awesome cartoon and you should go look at it.
In the accompanying post, Than quotes some things Watterson wrote by way of introduction to The Complete Calvin and Hobbes.
As the blog was linked and re-linked, I saw a few people, some of them Big-ish Name types, who seemed to be angry about Watterson’s decision, made years ago, never to license Calvin and Hobbes for any merchandising. There were never any Hobbes dolls on store shelves, never any Calvin and Hobbes lunch boxes or action figures. Just the comic strips, and various books collecting those strips together.
Watterson stopped writing and drawing the strip years ago, and because he refused to license either the characters or the strip, that means that Calvin and Hobbes came to an end.
The angry people take issue with Watterson’s decision (made many years ago) to eschew merchandising deals. If I follow their logic, they think it is hypocritical of Watterson not to license his property because the book collections are a form of merchandising. If he was willing to publish books, then why object to anything else?
I have several responses to that, but I’ll try to keep it to three:
1. Reprinting is not merchandising. The original strip was visual art and text published in newspapers. The books were collections of the exact same visual art and text. Republishing your original art exactly as it was is not the same thing as letting someone else make action figures which may include things you would have never had the characters use, for instance.
When this was pointed out, I saw at least one commentary complain bitterly about the fact that a certain number of unlicensed window clings are out there, showing Calvin pissing on a corporate logo, or praying in front of a cross. “And that’s all we’ve got!” Unlicensed things will happen whether Watterson licensed the characters or not. That is happening outside of his control, and it seems more than a bit illogical to blame him for that.
But the heart of the objection is revealed in that “that’s all we’ve got!” In other words, they’re angry because they can’t buy those hypothetical lunchboxes or dolls. This gets me to the second point, in which I will paraphrase Neil Gaiman:
2. Bill Watterson is not our bitch. Neil Gaiman famously explained to a fan who was complaining about George R.R. Martin not writing the next Game of Thrones novel as soon as the fan wanted that he isn’t entitled to complain. To translate Neil’s argument here: the people are complaining about Watterson’s decision as if their reading of the strip and/or buying the books constituted a contract: they bought the books, and now Watterson is obligated to do everything in his power to create (or allow to be created) things that they want.
Bill Watterson doesn’t owe us anything. While he was still creating the script, he did his best to tell us an engaging story. That is the only obligation any artist has to their audience: to do their best. He created characters that millions of people loved, and he told stories about them that millions of people enjoyed. How can you complain about that?
3. Bill Watterson’s life is his to live as he chooses. We don’t get to dictate what project he undertakes or what goals he pursues. He chose to end the story of Calvin and Hobbes while it was still doing well, because he didn’t want the quality of the stories to degrade, as has happened with other series which continued too long. In doing that, he was still fulfilling the only obligation he had: he was doing his best. He knew that continuing the story would not be his best. So he stopped.
We can disagree with his choice. We can be disappointed that there isn’t another Calvin and Hobbes strip, or a Calvin and Hobbes movie, or whatever. But we aren’t entitled to begrudge his choice.
You liked his work? You are free to re-read it. You want something new? There are artists out there creating new stuff. Go find something you like, and support a new artist or writer or singer or dancer or something.
I would usually at this point proceed to advise, “if you can’t find something you like, maybe you need to try creating something of your own, not fan art or fan fiction, but something that’s yours.”
Except the sorts of people who feel as entitled as these complainers do, they need to work out their overblown entitlement issues before they can create anything worth our time and attention.
The Great Nerd Summit (also known as San Diego Comic-Con International, or SDCC) of 2013 has just happened.
I have only attended once, back in the mid-80s when attendance was a mere 6000 people. Yes, I said “mere.” Last year’s attendance was more than 130,000 people. I don’t believe that official figures are out, yet, for this year. While the convention (called the Golden State Comic Book Convention when it was founded in 1970) originally was about Comics, and the word “comic” is still in its name, it had expanded far beyond that realm to embrace sci fi/fantasy books, movies with any sci fi or superhero connection what-so-ever, and gaming back when I was there.
Of course, comics is a style or medium of storytelling. I grew up reading both Donald Duck/Uncle Scrooge comics and X-men and the like, so even I knew that as a child. Yes, I said grew up. My mom was an X-men fan in the mid-sixties. I have mentioned before that I’m a second generation fan, right? My point being that you can conceivably tell any kind of story in comic form. And there have been the extremely interesting and well done examples of memoirs, biographies, and other kinds of story that don’t fit the comic book stereotype.
That said, SDCC has gotten to the point where it is the trade show for just about the entire entertainment industry. I understand why there are events highlighting upcoming movies such as sequels to The Avengers, Captain America, and Thor, as they’re all based on comics. And I understand why there are events rolling out teasers for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. It’s a cartoon, not a graphic story (there are comics, but those are spin-offs, and the official MLP events were all about the cartoon), but animated cartoons are an allied artform of comics. I even understand all the video game stuff that happens at the con.
But, much as I love Benedict Cumberbatch and the current BBC Sherlock series, I think that Sherlock events at SDCC is stretching the definition a bit. Whereas the fact that there were events for How I Met Your Mother, Veronica Mars, and Community is just insane.
The official SDCC award (as opposed to Awards sponsored by other organization which are simply presented at SDCC), the Inkpot, is given out for “outstanding achievement in the Popular Arts industry.” Which makes me think the event should more properly be called the San Diego Popular Arts Con.
I’ve gotten into arguments with fellow nerds about why Sherlock Holmes, as in the original character and stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, has often been included in science fiction events. I have defended the inclusion because Holmes could be argued to be an archetype of a particular kind of nerd: hyper observant, possessed of encyclopedic knowledge of a vast range of topics, an uncanny ability to find relationships between the most minute details, and infamously incapable of relating to people empathically. Serious articles have been published in psychological journals debating (pro and con) whether the fictional Holmes had Aspergers syndrome, for goodness sake! The Holmes stories may not be sci fi, but both the character and the methodology by which he solves his mysteries are highly identifiable to a significant portion of the fan community.
While I have made that argument, and will continue to do so, I’m also the first to admit that all it provides is a reasonable rationale for stretching the envelope to include Holmes as an allied creation. It’s a stretch, and I admit it.
A sort of similar argument can be made for the specific television show, Community, because its ensemble includes some nerds. But it’s a much more tenuous connection to make based on a couple of supporting characters, as opposed to the main character and his primary activity.
I can think of even more tenuous (and ludicrous) arguments that might be made for shows such as How I Met Your Mother, but all of them would be a smoke screen. The truth is that, as I mentioned, SDCC is a trade show, not a fan convention. Its purpose is to advertise, generate buzz, and fan the flames of enthusiasm for any popular art property that can shoehorn itself into the convention. That isn’t a bad thing, per se. Certainly no one is forcing fans to get online at a particular time on the final day of the convention so that the entirety of the next year’s memberships can be sold out in less than two hours. No one is forcing people such as myself to track down stories and videos of the events to get some ideas of what movies and shows I should be looking for in the future.
If you want to fan the flames of enthusiasm, there is no better place than the heart or mind of a nerd or geek. We’re more politely called fans, which is short for fanatic. The one trait that most distinguishes us from the mundanes is how incredibly, obsessively enthusiastic we get about the things we like. So even though some of us are primarily enthusiastic about science and science fiction, if you can get us interested in your show— even one that doesn’t have any discernible science-y aspects—we’ll talk about it. We’ll set our DVRs to catch your premiere. We’ll mention that it’s coming out to our less nerdy friends. We’ll make and post fan art or create and share silly memes based on photos from your show.
We will be your viral marketing campaign. And because tens of thousands of us are willing to buy memberships at SDCC each year, that means some of us are paying for the privilege.
Apart from other branding considerations, I think that’s why for the foreseeable future they won’t be replacing the “Comic” part of the name.
Gold Dust Applejack, from Equestria Rags.Yes, I’ve already posted a con report. Plus a couple of other blog posts related to the convention. But I always have more to say, and in this case there are some photos I still want to put up.
I’ve mentioned before my friend, Joi, who makes these fun rag doll ponies. She makes them from scraps. Her rules are that she only uses fabric from scrap bins, remainder piles, and thrift stores. So she finds fabric and says, “Oh, that would make an interesting Twilight Sparkle,” or what-have-you. She makes ponies based on characters in the series, or on original characters (by way of commission), and she makes ponies based on other things. I’ve seen her make a pony version of Carl Sagan, the classic Roman poet Virgil, Neil Gaiman’s Death, or the Mars Curiosity Rover. And she sells them online at Equestria Rags.
The Mayor Mare pony by Joi.The first pony I bought from her wasn’t for me. It was a pony version of Mayor Mare from the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic series. I had to plead a bit, because it was one of her early models where she was still figuring out how to make ponies, so she hadn’t started selling them, yet, and hadn’t planned to offer it for sale. But I really wanted to give it as a present to my husband, and I talked her into it.
A pony version of Carl Sagan that Joi made for Jared for his birthday.We’ve bought more ponies since.
A few weeks before the convention, she posted pictures online of a new pony she had just finished: Applejack made from gold lamé-style fabric.
Of the characters on the show, Applejack is my favorite. Or most-favorite, since I’m the kind of person who always winds up with about five or forty favorite characters in any book or series that I get into. Anyway, of course I wanted to buy Applejack in shiny, shiny gold! Who wouldn’t?
But she was one of the ponies Joi was making explicitly for the convention. To be a successful vendor at any convention, you have to have a variety of stock. Since these are handmade (hand cut, hand stitched, hand painted, et cetera), each one is a serious investment in time. Since she makes them from scraps, that means it is very unlikely she’ll be able to make multiple ponies exactly the same.
I wanted that gold Applejack. But I also wanted her to have a successful sales experience at the con. So I had to wait until the convention to buy her, and technically I had to wait until the Dealer’s Room opened.
Squeaky Derpy was tempting me all day.I had planned to just stand in front of her table starting a few minutes before the room opened (since I would be inside setting up my own table), just waiting there with money to hand her. This was before we discovered that we were at adjacent tables. Because of where we were, getting in and out from behind our table meant climbing over other people, so it would have been a bit awkward. At the two minutes ’til ten a.m. mark, I asked her if she was going to make me go to the other side of the table. She laughed and said we could just do the exchange now.
So for the rest of the day I had my golden Applejack on my table as a second mascot and to show folks. I had to tell several people she wasn’t for sale, but that Joi had lots of other ponies right there, and she takes commissions.
While sitting at my table, getting some writing done and occasionally selling buttons and pony toys to people, I kept watching a cute version of Derpy Hooves (a supporting character from the cartoon series) that had a squeaker. The squeaky fruit bats and ponies that Joi had were very popular. People kept squeezing them to show their friends while deciding which one to buy. I had already abused my position as a Vendor to buy one of her ponies out from under customers. And she was selling well. I figure the more people who buy her things and tell their friends, the more business she’ll get online, right?
Ponies I’ve gotten from Joi: Bedtime Derpy in the back, then (l to r): Gold Dust Applejack, Mayor Mare, Pinkie Pie, Gift Applejack, and Squeaky Derpy.Michael and I also already own a lot of plushies: scores of teddy bears, tigers, otters, ponies, and so on. We didn’t really need more, right? But when I asked Michael in the evening whether it would be okay for me to buy another pony to take up room around the house, he said fine. So the second morning of the con, when I saw that Squeaky Derpy was still there, I asked if I could buy her. Which meant I had two Derpies as mascots on the table Saturday.
It’s an addiction, I know. But I ain’t going to rehab! (And these are just the ones I’ve acquired. My husband also has several!)
The table I was sharing with Edd (MU Press) at EverfreeNW 2013.I had a lot of fun at EverfreeNW. As mentioned earlier, I spent most of the time behind a table in the “Vendor’s Room.” I’m used to the place where people sell stuff at a con being called “Dealer’s Room” or “Dealer’s Den.”
My half of the table was selling buttons, small My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic toys, some MLP:FIM coloring and sticker books, a couple of pony-themed bumper stickers, and a few of the most recent publications from the Tai-Pan Literary & Arts Project.
Joi was at the next table, selling rag doll ponies.We drove down and checked into the hotel midday on Thursday the 4th. Our friends Jwyl, Sky, Anthony, RJ, Wendy, and several others (I don’t remember how much of the gang was actually there at that time) were hanging out in the lobby of the hotel so they could see people as they arrived.
The convention was happening at the Seatac Hilton, but several of us like the Marriott next door better. So a bunch of us took rooms there. It was like having our own convention within a convention. We discovered that there was a gaming convention going on at the same time in the Marriott, so both places there were lots of people walking around the hotel wearing badges on lanyards around their necks.
A close up of Bedtime Derpy.When I had assembled our merchandise into a display the weekend before the convention, I’d put a super cute plushie pony I’d purchased from Equestria Rags on top.
Our friend, Joi, is the genius behind Equestria Rags, and she was sharing a table with Sky in the Dealer’s Den. I made up a little sign that identified the doll as Bedtime Derpy, made by Joi, and encouraging people to go see her table. I thought that 1) Bedtime Derpy is just too cute not to be seen, 2) it would be a way for me to direct people to Joi’s work, and 3) if someone with a kid expressed interest in the doll, I would be willing to part with her, because I really think she needs to be held and cuddled by a child.
Nami, Sky, and the back of Xen’s head. View from behind the tables.The only problem with my brilliant plan was that I had completely forgotten that Sky and I had both asked, on our Vendor Applications, to have our tables next to each other. So if anyone was at my table, they were likely already looking at the ponies on Joi’s table. Oh, well, I still had a lot of fun getting people to hug Bedtime Derpy and look more closely at the rag doll ponies.
We brought my large format printer in case Sky or some of our other friends needed to print more prints or buttons. I have an Epson color inkjet that will print sizes up to 13″ by 19″ posters. I didn’t realize until we were unloading the car that I have forgotten to pack the extra ink cartridges. But we’d come down a day early, and since it was a holiday traffic had been clear, so while Michael went off to work in Con Registration, I drove back home and grabbed a few other things we’d forgotten. And Sky did need to make some new buttons, so it was a good thing.
Anthony goofing off in our room.The weather wasn’t really hot, which was a big improvement over last year. But it’s warm, sunny, and high pollen season. When you combine that with sleeping in a hotel room, which always make my sinuses either dry up and ache or clog up and ache (I always assume it’s the mostly closed-system air conditioning that does it), I often feel as if I’m coming down with a cold when I’m at a con. Other people get sick after they come home, but usually not me.
The coming down sick feeling was especially bad on Saturday. I was getting cranky. My head, sinuses, and throat hurt. My eyes were itchy. And I was dozing off at the table. I was convinced I was sick. Anthony was trying to organize a run to a restaurant he liked, but we didn’t have enough transportation for everyone, and I just wanted to go curl up in bed and die by that point. So, Michael got me up to the bar at the Marriott. We’d eaten a few meals at the Marriott restaurant, and I’d been disappointed that the burgers and sandwiches I liked from earlier stays weren’t on the menu. They were on the bar menu, now!
So, I ordered soup, the Oregon Bleu Burger, and a coffee nudge. People keep asking me what a coffee nudge is. I can never remember: it’s coffee, some kind of booze, and whipped cream. And it’s really nice to drink when you’re feeling sick. According to the interwebs, a coffee nudge usually has brandy and dark creme de cacao, and sometimes coffee liqueur. I essentially inhaled the soup and the nudge, and felt a lot better.
Xen as Ninja Fluttershy at AFK Tavern.Members of the gang that I thought were being ferried to the off-site restaurant started show up at the bar and joining us. I learned that our friend, Nami, had never had a coffee nudge, and since I was about to order my third by that time, talked her into trying one. She seemed to enjoy it.
One of the only pics I got of Jared, shooting between a bunch of people.As usual, I’m always forgetting that I have a camera in my pocket all the time, so I didn’t take many pics. I’m especially irritated that I didn’t get pictures of several of our friends.
Jwyl spent most of the weekend down in Oregon visiting Katrina and Terry. Then Katrina and Jwyl drove up and joined us for the last few hours of the convention, and more importantly, the excursion to AFK Tavern. Even more people came up from the con for that this year. Which is cool, but made it difficult to actually enjoy any one’s company at the tavern.
I know several folks left early because it was just too crowded, too loud, and some folks had other problems related to those things. I’m not as much of an introvert as some of our friends, but the whole thing got to be a bit much for me, as well, so Michael and I left early, too.
It was a fun convention. We sold pretty well. Several of our friends sold a lot of stuff. A few of us have begun to more seriously conspire to have a book to sell next year. Yes, I’m planning on coming back. I hope a bunch of our friends are, too. Jwyl at the center of things at AFK Tavern.
I’m sharing a table at the vendor’s room of EverfreeNW, a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic convention.
I love going to conventions. I love going to conventions in order to spend time with friends who I don’t get to see as often as I like, to see and occasionally buy cool and odd things, to get away from mundanity for a few days, and sometimes to learn new things. Because I am a big introvert, I don’t really do well at the kinds of convention activities where one is required to interact in an open-ended way with a lot of strangers.
Oddly enough, I have discovered that the best way to see all the cool costumes, nifty artwork, and so on, while avoiding too much stranger interact is to staff a table at the convention and try to sell stuff. This may sound like a contradiction, but the structure of the dealer’s den means that generally I am only interacting with strangers in a limited number of ways. I am usually simply answering questions about the merchandise at the table. I’m not a hard-sell kind of guy. I will try to make eye contact and smile or greet people who are looking at the merchandise, but then I let them make the next move.
It is easy to spend the time when people aren’t asking questions writing. The last many years I usually have either my Macbook or my iPad with a bluetooth keyboard. Previous years I would have a notebook and a pencil. I wrote the first draft of one of the funniest, horror/epic fantasy/Christmas ghost story cross-over pieces ever entirely by hand in a dealer’s den in Chicago one con, for instance.
I got a lot of writing done on the first day of EverfreeNW.
I also had a lot of cool conversations. One of things I’m selling are a bunch of our duplicate 2-inch vinyl pony toys. We bought several extra boxes of them last year to do our pony-themed Christmas tree. So I had a box full of them which people were picking through looking for their favorite characters. One woman kept holding up some of the obscurer (“background ponies”) characters and asking me their names. I had to confess that I don’t recognize a lot of them, either.
At one point I said, “I’m sorry. My husband knows the names of most of the background ponies, not me.”
“Why isn’t your husband here, then?” she asked.
I pointed to the enormous line of hundreds of people waiting for registration. I had been hearing stories all day that people were waiting in line for hours to buy their memberships. I said, “My husband is on registration staff. I don’t know when I’ll see him again.”
“Oh, yeah, you may not see him again until the con is over.” She went back to looking at the ponies. “I must say, even though they’re being slammed, the people who waited on me were all very nice and helpful.”
She bought about half a dozen ponies.
Several other fun conversations were with younger kids about buttons. My husband has recycled a lot of the packaging material for some of the pony toys by turning them into pin-back buttons. The buttons are popular with lots of folks, but the kids seem especially enamored of the buttons. Most of the conversations centered around which is their favorite character, and what the best picture of said character was that we had on a button.
I noticed that the younger kinds most liked the inch-and-a-quarter size. Though the slightly older ones would pick the small buttons, then realize that the price was the same for a big one, and go looking for a large one with the same character. Because the buttons have been made by cutting out pre-printed packaging, we seldom have the exact same pose in both sizes.
One girl tried to talk her younger sister into switching to a bigger one of the same character. “No! This one’s better!”
I’m a fan of lots of things, and I’m used to most people not quite understanding my obsessions. Many of the other kids watched Lost In Space, for instance, while it was running in prime time during first and second grades, but didn’t understand why I still liked to watch the reruns in sixth grade. And none of them seemed to be watching Star Trek when it was on prime time, so I got a lot of blank looks if I talked about it, until years later when it became a big hit in syndication. Similarly, all the kids knew who Superman and Batman were, but thought I was weird for reading the Avengers and Doctor Strange.
Once we finally moved to a town big enough to have a significant sci fi contingent (10th grade), I started feeling a little less like a freak. And when, that summer, the original Star Wars came out, it seemed for a while as if everyone was at least a bit of a freak. Though I still got some funny looks and rolled eyes when people found out that I had driven to a large screen theatre in another state 13 times just to see Star Wars on the highest quality screen and sound system I could find.
And so for the last couple of years I’ve found myself having to explain the appeal of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, a show originally intended for little girls.
The truth is, I resisted watching it. When I first heard about the Brony phenomenon, I thought it was mildly amusing, but more because other people were making such a big deal out of young adult men watching a kid’s cartoon. Then one of my friends started showing episodes to my husband while we were all at a comics con together, and though I tried not to watch, I couldn’t resist.
The answer to “why ponies?” is simply that the scripts were well written. Yes, Lauren Faust, the producer for this relaunch of My Little Pony, had wanted to create a show for little girls, but specifically she wanted to get away from the sexist assumptions of most toys and shows aimed at little girls. She wanted a story that treated girls as humans, not little princesses who are only interested in dolls. So the six main characters, all female, are written as six young adults with diverse interests and occupations. We have an athlete, a baker, an animal caretaker, a farmer, a designer/seamstress, and a librarian. The emphasis, in the first season, at least, was less on outlandish mystical villains (though, yes, there are a couple of those) and more on personality conflicts, misunderstandings, and mundane misadventures.
More importantly, the writers don’t generally talk down to the audience. Instead of writing stories that will appeal only to children (or what some adults think would appeal to children), they write character-driven stories.
It reminds me of a theme I read again and again back in the days when I regularly read Writers Digest and The Writer magazine: a good children’s story was a good story, period. Every established children’s author or editor of children’s publications has tons of stories of meeting aspiring writers who have the mistaken notion that writing for children is a good place to start, because children’s writing is easier, because children are simple, right?
Children are people, they just don’t have as much experience as adults. Yes, there are areas of the brain that don’t reach full development until mid-to-late twenties, there are topics that children may not have the emotional maturity or context to handle easily, and there are topics that society generally agrees aren’t appropriate to share with children. Their priorities and perspectives are different, but they aren’t stupid and they aren’t simple-minded. Their stories, therefore, shouldn’t be dumbed-down versions of adult stories.
And that was certainly the case in the first couple seasons of the show.
Another thing I like about the show is the utter lack of cynicism within the stories and so far as I can tell in the execution of the series. It’s just a fun, often joyful experience.
I understand why some people don’t like the show. I understand why some people think it is strange that adults follow the show, organize conventions to talk about it, and so forth. But then, I also think that more people should ask just what the appeal is to so many otherwise intelligent adults of the by-the-numbers, totally unchallenging, practically sleep-written Law & Order franchises.
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