#m.a. larson

Love this episode. Great episode! Even just because they remembered about season 4 events. And I love seeing Fluttershy defending herself. She growed up so much. And song is great and catchy.

Today’s page by freelance animator Ashley Nichols brings us writer M.A. Larson’s batpony! But wait- what’s he drawing?

Hey there, Wasteland. We’ve got more news to dispense to your eager minds.

Peter New? Check. Lee Tockar? Check.

Hm. How about a third?

Yep, that sounds good, and we won’t delay the suspense any further than three paragraphs in: we’re happy to announce that M.A. Larson will be attending TrotCon 2017!

Look, if you’ve been to TrotCon in the past, chances are you know the guy. After all, he attended our 2014 and 2015 conventions, and when he didn’t show up for 2016, we heard ya loud and clear via email and on social media: you needed more M.A. Larson in your lives in July in Columbus, Ohio.

If you’ve been following along on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic from the start, you know his name. Larson was one of the chief writers on the show for a few years, working his way up to the role of story editor for season five. He’s since left the show, but nonetheless maintains a strong presence at pony conventions all over the world (ours included!).

My Little Pony is far from his only entertainment credit. He’s written for Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Gravity Falls, Littlest Pet Shop, and more, and even has his own novel, Pennyroyal Academy, that you should definitely check out if you haven’t already, because it totally rules. 100 percent. We aren’t messing around with this recommendation, y’all. As it happens the second book in the series, The Shadow Cadets of Pennyroyal Academy, just came out earlier this month. Timing!

Larson will join Peter New and Lee Tockar as special guests at TrotCon 2017, and you’ll get to hear his thoughts on his book series, ponies, and much more at multiple panels throughout the weekend, as well as get a chance to meet him and get an autograph or five. We know you want ’em, and we hear he’ll sign just about anything. Anything.

But hey, guess what? We’ve got more than just one guest announcement to do today.

Just some housekeeping stuff, but we think you’ll wanna hear: for the first time, we’re offering something we’re calling a Spirit Badge for TrotCon 2017. What’s it entail? Well, check it: you’re a fan of TrotCon, but you can’t make it out for this reason or that. Yeah, sad face. We’re bummed, too. But wait! What if we told you that you could still support your good ol’ Ohio pony con friends? Get a Spirit Badge, then, dummy!

For $40, you’ll be supporting TrotCon, helping us to put on some great programming and to snag even more guests of honor (because they ain’t cheap!), while also getting a few spoils for your troubles, including:

a con book

a limited-edition pin

a poster

a special Spirit Badge

We’ll shoot those goodies over to you via mail, you’ll open ’em up, it’ll be like Christmas in July or August or whenever it actually arrives. Donate more? We’ll throw in more goodies. They’ll be so good, you’ll wanna call them greaties. No? Terrible? Yeah, true, sorry, that was bad.

One last thing: if you want to pre-order merchandise for the convention in 2017 — shirts, pins, that sort of thing — then you can ALSO now do that on our Eventzilla page! Scroll down to Merchandise Pre-Order and do your thing.

That does it, then. Time to roll the hype train on out of the station. In the meantime, weekend badges (Friday-Sunday) for TrotCon 2017 are $50 through June 20, and kids 12 and under get in free with a regular badge purchase! We’ve also got sponsor badges available, in case you’re attending but want to toss some extra money our way to help us give you an even better time (and so you’ll get more stuff, which is the real prize). Applications for EVERYTHING — staff, musicians, artists, panels, you name it! — are now on the site as well!