Shady's Secret: hallucinogenic fun for the whole family!

[ladymoondancer]

Excerpts from "Shady's Secret" from "My Little Pony" Favourite Stories comics (1986).




Shady's friends often didn't believe her when she described what she saw through her magic sunglasses. For reasons that will soon become apparent.



AHHHHH THAT DOOR!



Things become vaguely creepy, with a merry-go-round full of ponies that look just like her. Also a bunch of pixies are looking for their kidnapped friends. So Shady looks through the wall to find them. Which she can do. Because, SUNGLASSES!



"DID YOU SEE IT WALK OFF? DID YOU??"

Anyway, Shady is able to get next door and save the other pixies. And then . . .



She somehow ends up back home. And she is talking to the same two ponies as she was at the beginning of the comic--was she just standing there all this time??

I have the unnerving feeling that Shady actually IS the missing merry-go-round pony, somehow.


Context? FOR THE WEAK!

Comments

[crinos]

I'm sorry but, Spike in that coat with a gold chain.... There are no words.

Also, Spike had a good reason for not eating his pudding. He didn't eat any meet. How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?

[ladymoondancer]

Spike, the blingingest dragon of all time!

[lilacsigil]

But did they ever find the missing carousel pony? That is really very trippy.

[captainbellman]

Shady by name, Shady by nature.

[ladymoondancer]

In France, Shady was named "Incognito". Very suspicious.

[silicondream]

EYELESS PONIES

It's like Lucy Clifford came to the future just to write franchise tie-ins.

[cainofdreaming]

What a poignant little story about mental illness.

I mean, those other ponies are so stuck in their collective neuroses that they fail to see the wonderful adventure land around them. Get them some help, Shady.

[sadoeuphemist]

*Refused to go to bed early
*Wouldn't eat his pudding
*OPENED THE FORBIDDEN DOOR

[donnblake]

*Refused to go to bed early.
*Wouldn't eat his pudding.
*Tore the veil between worlds.

[ilmari]

Yeah, I kind of doubt that helping the 'flower lady' and running errands is going to make up for for unleashing the Author of All Evil upon the world.

[ladymoondancer]

The Flower Lady, incidentally, is not a lady who sells flowers.

She's a lady MADE of flowers.

The glories of G1!

[ilmari]

Apparently the rules of capitalization were crazy back then as well, since that proper noun isn't capitalized, but 'messages' is for whatever reason.

Though that does make me wonder whether the Timberwolves are the 'Flower Lady's' pets gone wild.

[ladymoondancer]

That is one of my favorite panels. Ever. :D

[crinos]

Also: I think Shady ended up befriending a tribe of Cereal mascots.

I'm pretty sure that's Boo Berry among them.

[espanolbot]

Huh, they're the sunglasses from They Live.

[marghammerman]

Current MLP is obviously awesome, but G1 is the era I grew up with, so it's still my sentimental favourite. I love the design of the ponies from this era, with their kind of chunky bodies and big, blunt noses. I also *love* all those 80s pastels (I want to wear every colour in this comic, all at once, right now).

Thanks so much for sharing these--I never had any of the comics growing up, though I do remember drawing some of my own (which I so wish I still had--wonder if they'd be crazier or saner than the real comics...? :P).

[ladymoondancer]

I love G1 MLPs! I like the current show too, but the original My Little Ponies were where it was AT.

I never had any of the comics growing up either, actually--they were only sold in the UK. (Ohhh, that gives me an idea for another post!) But I love them dearly all the same. :D

Oh, here is a picture of the UK version of Shady. She is actually . . . really REALLY bright!



Really brings home the sunglasses theme.

[marghammerman]

Awesome! Neon (especially hot pink) is just as good, as far as I'm concerned :P

Off-topic (or not, inasmuch as the insanity of MLP is kind of a running theme), but I was thinking about it this afternoon, and I'm pretty sure my explanation for the MLPs within the stories I used to make up as a kid was that they were the ghosts of dead ponies, now immortal and granted superpowers relating to their names/symbols to use in the protection and defense of alive ponies. Not sure what they were specifically defending alive ponies from... animal cruelty, I guess? I know Black Beauty was also one of my fav books at the time, so maybe that explains it. Regardless, I'm pretty sure I had Firefly hurling Zeus-style lighting bolts at evil villains.

...Though I'm pretty sure that's still not as creepy or insane as the Ray Bradbury-esque excursion into the nature of free will and reality that is this actual comic.

[ladymoondancer]

Oh my God, that is AWESOME! It seems like everyone who had My Little Ponies as kids thought up their own world for them, and I love yours! Oddly enough, I was pondering the other day on which G1 ponies would correspond to the Greek gods and I figured Firefly for the lightning-throwing leader of the gods! With Medley as her consort. :D