Official G1 comic thread 3

[Deep Purple Crystal]

Given both the inordinate length of time since my most recent splurge of activity on this forum and the recent inventory I've undertaken of my G1 comic collection, I figure that the time has finally come to create another incarnation of this thread. Anyone else got any scans/photos to contribute?
To get the ball rolling, several photos (from the dust-coated depths of my old website) depicting small shapshots of the elusive MLP Tales issues:
Cover story for no. 206:
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"Starlight's Secret" (MLP no. 207):
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"'Falling' for Lancer" (MLP no. 209):
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[Taffeta]

The tales comics are a pain. I had the comic on subscription when they came out, and there were a few missing in distribution even at the time they were released...kind of suggests that the distribution was patchy :/ I have a couple of those missing still as a result...

I have lost track of which comics I don't have and right now my folders have ponies sitting onthem. But I feel like there's a need for more stuff about the comics in general. LM's blog is really good and there are some videos on YT from someone who read the stories - I forget who now.

Much love for the comics. They were my principal pony story influence as a child and I use them heavily for character references on my site.

[Deep Purple Crystal]

So the comic's distribution was becoming increasingly erratic by 1993? Given both the declining prevalence of G1 MLP in the UK at the time and the scarcity of the Tales issues (having witnessed only two or three copies of numerous issues for sale across nearly a decade of collecting myself - the final monthly MLP & Friends run from 1994 appears to be particularly scarce), this seems to be a likely explanation.

Your views on the relative dearth of comprehensive G1 comic resources and material online are also on-point - given that I have only nineteen issues left to complete both sets (11 from the MLP run and 8 from MLP & Friends, excepting a handful of seasonal specials), I've often contemplated compiling (at least) an organized websites displaying photos/scans of each issue alongside recurring characters and plot elements (both the ponies themselves and the immense recurring humanoid/fantastical secondary cast, some of which recur years following their initial appearances given the comic's surprising dedication to long-term continuity). Someday...

[Ponybookworm]

I too am collecting comics, & have some scans of them, including Club Pages (not scanned any in ages & will at some point have to see if I can still scan stuff wi the current scanner & if not, replace...)

As a youngster I don't think I had any comics beyond 1990, so have no idea about Tales.

I will, however, definitely keep a beady on this xxx

[Taffeta]

At the start of lockdown when I began the renovation for my website (which is currently not visible, I don't want to disrupt the existing one) I had this idea that there should be some kind of database of characters in the comics...but since I already have way too many pony pages to figure out...that isn't going to happen immediately.

There's also the backcards I want to do something with.

Right now I don't have a functioning scanner that can do a decent job with these though. Or at least, I might do, but it's in storage and I don't know if it still works. Dad is not keen on scanning hundreds of comics and backcards for me >.> I asked xD.

I have about 10 missing issues from the regular run but I am missing a bunch of the Friends comics since. But yeah, we had the subscription for the comic, my sister and I both, at the local newsagents next to my primary school. And there were some missing issues. I can't remember which issues without checking my folder. I had most of them but it was the tales issues that there were sometimes order disruptions.

I don't know if it's related but the very last line of MLP in the Uk and Europe also didn't really penetrate to the area where I grew up. I think the big TRU that used to be in the county town probably had them, as I have found some of them in the past at carboot sales. But I never saw as a child any of the ponies from the very final year of production. All of ours except one nurse and the jewellery babies came from clearance stores in London and Wales. The others came from a local collector here, whose sources of ponies probably weren't limited to local - she had some US ponies too when she sold up.

So it may just have been a regional issue with the comics, not a national one. Distribution in this area was always a bit squinky. There were some sets in earlier years I also never saw in stores (like Perfume Puffs).

[Leave a Whisper]

This makes me want Tales boy figures even more. I like Ace's colors in the comics better then beige/blonde.

[Deep Purple Crystal]

Finally turfed up a picture of my MLP run (sans 18 issues of 223) circa 2018 (as awkwardly-framed as the photo may be):
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[Ponybookworm]