REVIEW: Super Horse Friendship Force Five

[Tom Russell]

Over the last couple of days I finally got around to sitting down and reading Super Horse Friendship Force Five # 1 - 6. I had tried reading the first one when it came out, but I really needed to be in the right headspace and I wasn't at that time.

It's very *earnest* - heart on its sleeve (do horses have sleeves?) - and operates on a special kind of ultra-manic dream logic. Is the prose polished, always the right word at the right time? No, but it's not about that, it's about energy and personality and something raw and immediate, the whole thing rushing from sensation to sensation, joke to joke, and trauma to trauma. The trauma is barely-disguised by the jokes, as is the raw neediness of some of the ponies' personalities.

Which is all to say that I rather liked it, but as I said, I needed to be in the right headspace for it. I think the second arc, with its ---- focus isn't quite the right word, because it's still crazy bananapants "and then this thing happens", but focus is the closest thing I have on hand - focus on just two of the five really helps those two to stand out. All five of them have personalities, but they haven't all gotten quite as much time to shine, and it can be difficult -- especially as the story keeps moving forward, forward, ever forward -- to hold all five of them in your head at once.

Anyway: recommended, for certain tastes and for certain headspaces, and I hope Annabee continues to write her unique brand of pony-fueled anarchy.