"Open a World of Possible"—Scholastic Book Fair
There was one other piece of news that came out of Awesome Con. Something that parents of kids who are fans of the My Little Pony Comics should probably pay attention to.
IDW and Scholastic have brought the My Little Pony Comic line to Scholastic Book Fairs in Schools all around the country.
Not only that, but they have exclusive trade variant covers to boot. You can find the whole story of how I stumbled upon this little surprise—as well as a look at the next exclusive Trade Edition Cover—after the break!
The MLP comics are invading your children's schools! And I found out about that in the most unexpected way possible.
I was looking through Tony Fleecs's available prints at Awesome Con when I stumbled upon a cover to a trade paperback I had never seen before (Pictured above on the right). Tony mentioned off hand that it was the cover to something involving Scholastic and their Book Fairs. Curious, but initially dismissing the possibility to personal experience—the last Book Fair I remember attending was in 6th grade and there were no comics in there—I continued chatting with Tony for a few minutes about his work on Night of the Living Apples and how I would be commissioning him at NYCC for a colored head shot of my Pony OC.
I moved on after that, and headed to Thom Zahler to discuss the possibility of doing an interview for EQD. Imagine my surprise when we were chatting and I looking through his portfolio of available prints that I discovered a cover I had never seen before. When asked about it, Thom stated that it was a variant cover of Adventures in Friendship Volume 3 for the Scholastic Book Fairs.
Picture of variant cover taken with permission.
I threw out my previous notion of Scholastic not doing comics and as soon as landed back home started digging. And digging, coming up with nothing. I then turned to the second biggest MLP comic collector on the planet, Ramivic, and ask him if he heard of anything.
Turns out, My Little Pony: Pony Tales pt 1—a Scholastic Book Fair Edition exclusive reprint of Micro Series issues 1–3—had been in the spring Scholastic Book Fair. His two daughters had surprised him with the comic one day after he had gotten back from work.
At that point, I knew there was one thing I had to do. I reached out to IDW, trying my luck to see if anyone had anything to say on the matter. IDW Senior Book Editor Justin Eisinger responded, and had this to say on the matter.
"Thanks for your interest in our Scholastic program—we really do value our relationship with their efforts and can't stress enough what a great opportunity it is for reaching young comic book fans.
Yes, IDW has been fortunate enough to package content of all types for the Scholastic program.
We are honored to be a part of their efforts to promote reading (comic books!) to young readers, and look forward to delivering exciting, quality comic book content to their catalog for many years to come!"
With two trades out the door, and a third on the way (probably this fall since Adventures in Friendship Volume 3 doesn't release until July 21st, 2015) I think it's safe to say that MLP Comics will have a firm place at the Book Fair a while!
And what better way is there to getting a child to discover the magical world of comics than through a MLP comic at the Book Fair.
Special Thanks to Ramivic for help with finding photos of the two already released trades!
Twitter: The Illustrious Q
