The UK and My Little Pony "Lore": An Overview

Generation 1 was constructed on many different 'canons' - backcards, television, comics, localised merch, and, most importantly, a child's imagination.

 In North America, the animated series was prevalent, but it was extremely limited in many of its 'canon' concepts. For example, in the animation, all earth and pegasus ponies were stripped of magic abilities, and some had their personalities completely 'rewritten' to suit whatever the scriptwriters wanted to achieve. The lack of 'magic' in non-unicorn species has been repeated in Generation 4 and in Generation 5 - but in G1, it is limited only to the animated series. (Thank goodness).

My Little Pony Comic Sample front cover

(#34, UK, 1986)

In the UK, the pony comics ran for a much longer period (from 1985 through to 1994 inclusive). These tended to refer far more closely to Hasbro's backcard story concepts for each pony (although it also added its own nuances).

As a child, I only had four animated episodes on VHS. The TV series did not air here in full until 1995, after My Little Pony had ended. Even as a child, I felt a disconnect from them, because of how different they were from the comic stories and backcards I was more familiar with.

Small details like ponies not available here and altered names also made me feel like the animation was 'wrong'. As an adult collector, I understand it as a different, but parallel, canon. The animated series certainly has more 'weight' in North America, where there were occasional books and cassettes but no comic release. The UK comic, however, took most of the spotlight in the UK 'narrative'. If there is a "UK Lore", it was undoubtedly created there.

You can find out more about the UK Comic "canon" by visiting the comic section, here.