I have been working with my friend Carolina Shuda to create something badass out of our mutual frustration.
I wrote a lot of stories for My Little Pony and while I'm very proud of those stories, I hated getting shot down or reconceptualized any time I wanted to have a lesson that was progressive or especially queer. I wanted to explore a world where friendship wasn't so easy, where you were always working to be friends against the rules of society and the prejudices of your family and where, sometimes, friendships turned into something more. Where characters were allowed to be hard to love and difficult to like - but they were still trying to be friends through all of that.
Caroline was frustrated that she didn't get to design new fashion for Monster High characters or build monsters that reminded her of herself.
Out of those frustrations, our current project "Friends from Heck" was born. I've been pitching it as "My Little Ponies meets Mean Girls, with demons" and it's a definitively YA story of friendship between a group of girl demons who were never supposed to be friends, who are hard to get along with, and who are just as often defined by their faults than their best qualities.
Are you ready to be friends with some high school girls who are real demons?
Pictured above is Betty, the punk rocker of our group. She's probably my favorite design because she reminds me of a friend of mine who was, in her own way, pretty difficult to love.
Tell us what you think!
