#kevin eastman style

[artbyeel]

First time drawing a turtle

[pufferfishdude]

Eastman and Laird’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Vol. 1 Issue 41

Eastman and Laird’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is the comic that kicked off the TMNT franchise that’s still going strong. It started in 1984, put out by Mirage Studios and created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. It initially starting off as a oneshot parody of Frank Miller’s Daredevil, with a dark gritty tone, serious Turtles, and Shredder getting killed off at the end (he did come back though...good old clones!). However, come issue 2 and it immediately changed into what would become the blueprints for the face of the franchise with the gang getting distinct established personalities, supporting cast April and Casey and multiple weird and varied faces and threats. The first volume last 62 issues.

Issue 41 is part of what is known as the Guest Era of Volume 1, where other writers and artists came in to fill in the comic’s run when Eastman and Laird were busy dealing with the ballooned success of TMNT. This run, which was 23 out of 62 issues, features varying art styles, stories and tones that can clash, whether it’s serious and character-focused or wacky and off-the-wall. The Guest Era stopped when Eastman and Laird came back fully to wrap up Vol 1, with the Era eventually being declared non-canon due to matters of royalties and creative ownerships. 

Issue 41, called ‘Turtles Dreams’, looks into the respective dreams of the titular Turtles and mentor Splinter. In Donatello’s, the gang get captured by the government and experimented on, though their existence gets leaked and leads to them becoming known to the public via a cartoon, obviously referencing the 1987 cartoon, which results in a franchise. Years later, the Turtles are released from captivity and try to resume crimefighting, but their fame gets them swamped by fans, making their purpose of fighting evil much harder. Donatello comes to Splinter for advice on how to deal with this, but the old wise rat has no idea. 

The dream culminates in the Turtles becoming shadows of their former selves, growing lazy and bloated from their inability to actively use their skills, now just four fat turtles who sit around watching reruns of their show, Donatello stuffing his face as he reflects what led to them here, while one of his brothers asks if he’s going to eat all of his cheese cookies. Donatello wakes up in shock at the prospect of them growing into Teenage Coach Potato Turtles.

[jadethest0ne]

Another really fun request from an anonymous follower!

The first outfit is from an old drawing by Kevin Eastman of OG April O’Neil. The second is Haruko’s outfit from FLCL because I was feeling nostalgic and thought April would look cool in some anime get-up. And the last one used a combination of different styles and outfits that I made up with inspiration from the @rise-fashion-zine and a particular piece of artwork by @madame-mongoose. Oh, and the backgrounds, I just took out of the show.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I had fun making it!

[thecomicsnexus]

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES #125 - 126 JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2022 BY KEVIN EASTMAN, TOM WALTZ, SOPHIE CAMPBELL, PABLO TUNICA, RONDA PATTISON AND SHAWN LEE

The turtles get attacked by the Punk Frogs in retribution for the turtles kidnapping one of them... but was it them? Or is there another mutant turtle around? (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

SCORE: 8

OK... this Jasper Barlow... there are too many similarities for him not being related to the Rat King...

Otherwise, he seems like a Dr. Pyg/Dollmaker knockoff.

And yeah, Groundchuck and Dirtbag were just introduced.

The mysterious Turtle that kidnapped Bonnie, the missing frog... is probably related to the creation of Venus de Milo (although I have the general idea that Venus is made up of parts of Bonnie... we’ll see).

Casey seems to be using a new war cry... “zunga!”... which... doesn’t work well in Spanish (that’s how we usually call a speedo).

My main problem with this story is that I am not a fan of Pablo Tunica. I understand that he is a good choice when it comes to toads and frogs, but his style is a bit weird, and he is not very good at composition. There are several cases where all we can see is the frogs feet... and it just doesn’t work for me.

And the most notorious problem with the art is Ch’rell...

Who is no longer wearing his scar.

There is a second plot around Commander Zom giving birth and Seri being born (apparently, Triceratons usually reproduce through cloning).

But Seri... the newborn and regent.... if the name sounds familiar to you... it’s because she was Michelangelo’s affair in Mirage’s volume four. You know... the one with whom he had an egg?

Will this relationship be explored? I hope so!

Venus is set to debut in issue #127 (which should be coming out next week... I think?)

[brightlotusmoon]

TMNT Co-Creator Explains Why Fans Should Be Excited for Seth Rogen's Reboot

In a new interview with IGN, Eastman spoke about his excitement for Rogen's film. He told the outlet that he was a "big fan" of the comedian's work, but that he was not involved with the project in any capacity. "No, I have not spoken to [Rogen], and that's also awesome because I do feel like different parts of the Turtles, different universes that Nickelodeon would bring me to work on," Eastman said. "And so that's what I think is special. Because I don't want him to feel intimidated or think that if he asks me a question, I tell him, 'Well, you should do this,' that he should do that. It's his vision and his idea."

-

Luckily I haven't seen too many antisemitic comments from fans who have already decided to hate Rogan TMNT. Mostly they hate his humor and style but occasionally go after his appearance and personality, and as someone who knows the man, that pisses me off.

*Yiddish Voice* He's a good young man, you leave him alone.

I'm overjoyed that Kevin is excited.

[bartoonist]

Eastman & Laird-comparison sketch: this is my comparison sketch I drew of Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s turtles in three art styles, with their frontal viewpoints highlighted in mirage style crosshatch gray tones, and I colored their three quarter and profile viewpoints in watercolor, I always wanted to explore the art style differences between Eastman and Laird’s solo art styles and their collaborative style, Kevin Eastman’s turtle heads and faces I drew have a more of that sketchy Frank Miller style that I see in Kevin’s IDW-Turtles comic covers these days only it looks like to me that Kevin Eastman draw his sketchy pencils in his comic art like frank Miller and then Inks them like Jack Kirby, and I looked up Peter Laird’s comic artwork to see what his solo art style looks like currently and presently as I looked them up on google images and at the Comic Art Fans website, Peter Laird’s art style for his turtles' heads and faces looks like a mix Dave Sim & Gerhard’s Cerebus style mixed with Walt Disney, Don Bluth, and Neal Adams, and Eastman and Laird’s collaborative style as I looked up their evolved combo style in their 25th and 30th anniversary illustrations and those I’ve seen in the 1st and second volume of TMNT Ultimate collection on their turtles looks a lot like Pixar mixed with Ralph Bakshi's photorealistic Animation style from Lord of the Rings, Fire and Ice, and American Pop, and a bit of Hayao Miyazaki's Anime style, and with a traditional superhero comic art style which was photorealistic back in the Golden and Silver ages of Comics, like the traditional superhero comic artists known as Bob Kane, Jack Kirby, Will Eisner, and Neal Adams as examples of how I look at those three styles I tried out for fun, and I hope you folks like my comparison sketch I drew recently?

[moscarific]

1984 for the ask thing. :)

Well, this sure did become a thing.

Film

This Is Spinal Tap - Almost forty years later, I have not stopped laughing at this movie. When I saw it as a kid, the mockumentary style threw me for a loop in the best way, because I was so used to seeing comedy that was showy and carefully timed, and the humor here feels off-the-cuff and real. Everything in my home goes up to 11.

The Muppets Take Manhattan - This film does not actually hold up except for the music, but the scene with Miss Piggy and Joan Rivers turned me into a 5-year-old drag queen.

The NeverEnding Story - Am I too old to harbor a tiny hope that I will someday step into a book and become the hero of its story? And get to ride on a big fluffy white dragon?

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension - It has been a couple of decades since I first watched this in college - drunk and/or high at midnight in the college theater - and I still have no idea what the fuck I just saw. But I'm pretty sure it was awesome.

Ghostbusters - My dad took me to see this in the theater when I was four, and I lasted a full 15 minutes before I got scared and started crying. I don't think my dad has forgiven me. Anyway, I like it better now.

Stop Making Sense - David Byrne's big suits were my first drag aesthetic, and the music. The weird, jittery, post-apocalyptic, transcendent music. Someday I will step into a suit and live in David Byrne's head.

Books

Neuromancer (William Gibson) - I read this the way it was meant to be read, at age fourteen, to impress the upperclassmen on the literary magazine staff. It felt prescient in the '90s, and now it's just uncanny. Gibson is one of those authors who doesn't seem like he turns much of a phrase, until you step back and see how immersive his worlds are.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Milan Kundera) - I pulled this off my parents' shelf in high school because it had a cool cover and read the whole thing while I was home with a cold. When I try to explain to people why I find it comforting to believe there's no afterlife, I wish I could hand them this book instead.

The Illuminatus! Trilogy (Bob Shea & Robert Anton Wilson) - More weird cult stuff that you have to read in high school or never. It's not... good? But it's great.

The Butter Battle Book (Dr. Seuss) - Every parent should teach their young children that the problem with war is that it's banal and nonsensical, and we can all do better.

Comics

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Kevin Eastman & Peter Laird) - My friend got her hands on trades of the early runs of TMNT in middle school, and the revelation of this darkly satirical source text of the TV cartoon was a pop culture coming-of-age moment. It's about superheroes as people, and adolescents as people, and gentrification and marginalization and homelessness and family, and it made me want to move to New York immediately.

TV

Muppet Babies - My generation has collectively forgotten most of the cartoons we watched at 8 AM on Saturday mornings while building pillow forts and Lego spaceships with our little brothers, but we've all retained this one.

V - I watched this by accident on a hotel room TV when I was way too young for it, and it creeped me out and made me fall in love with sci-fi in ways that I was surprisingly ready for.

Theater

Sunday in the Park with George - One of the great works of art about making art, from the perspective that process is inscrutable but people are not. The score bangs on dissonant chords until the exact moment when you think you can't take it anymore, and then it opens up into beautiful, soothing melody just long enough to really fuck you up again. Assume that whenever you read my writing, I hummed "Look, I made a hat!" just before posting.

Music

The Pretenders - Learning to Crawl - Chrissie Hynde's voice is so sexy, and the songs are full of a uniquely Midwestern longing.

Robyn Hitchcock - I Often Dream of Trains - Side A is all pranking on Freud and Christianity, and side B finds things to have faith in, even if Hitchcock still sounds like he's snarling.

R.E.M. - Reckoning - Mostly mournful and lovely, plus two absolute bangers that are retroactive bi pride anthems.

Depeche Mode - Some Great Reward - I bristled at this in high school when I thought it was edgy (but too pop), then embraced it in college when I realized it wasn't that edgy after all (but stunning).

Madonna - Like a Virgin - I can perform an improv lip sync routine to any song on this album, on demand.

Prince & The Revolution - Purple Rain The best pop album ever made. I am not accepting criticism at this time.

[roninkairi]

Game Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles- Shredder's Revenge

For many of us who grew up in the 80s, there was many animated shows that we could never get enough of, one of them being Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Originally starting as a gritty, violent black and white comic created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, the series became immensely popular when it was adapted into a kids cartoon and debuted in 1987. The show’s popularity was enough to spawn various video game adaptations over the following years from Konami, the arcade games being the most notable and popular. Arguably the most successful of the games was the SNES version of Turtles in Time and since then, game developers have had difficulty replicating the same type of formula that made the arcade games so fun to play, the most egregious examples being Turtles in Time Reshelled, Out of the Shadows and Mutants in Manhattan, which was based on the current IDW comic series.

But now there is hope. After making a return to gaming in “Nickelodeon All Star Brawl”, the full team returns to top form in “Shredder’s Revenge”. Published by Dotemu and developed by Tribute Games (comprised of team members who had worked on “Scott Pilgrim vs The World The Game”), the game goes back to it’s arcade side scrolling roots and does it well, [opting to go for the retro 16 bit look, but animated very well. The game is not connected to any of the past games but the inspiration is clearly there, as there are small nods and easter eggs spread out throughout the game. There are even shoutouts to the first NES game; the overhead map resembles the original game’s overworld screens.

The game’s story is as simple as it can get; Shredder and Krang are creating havoc throughout the city and seem to be targeting the Statue of Liberty. (Apparently, they wanted to beat COBRA to the punch before they could bomb it) and once again, it’s up to the Turtles to take them down. However, unlike other games in the series you are no longer confined to using just the 4 turtles; this time you can also fight as April O’Neil, Master Splinter and Casey Jones (unlocked after beating the game once). Your choice of which character to play as affects your playstyle as each of the 6 have particular strengths and weaknesses to discover (Leo is the most rounded of the group while Mikey and April are freaking combo MACHINES) The game is split into Arcade and Story mode. Story mode plays out similar to the aforementioned Scott Pilgrim game- as you play and earn points you can level up and gain access to more moves, extra lives and super meter. Each character has 3 different types of super moved to use that can clear a crowd in a hurry and can be built up either by kicking a whole lot of ass or by taunting, the latter which can be exploited a lot when there is no enemies to fight. There are also a variety of combo moves, anti airs, dive attacks and roll escapes to use in order to rack up combo strings, daring the most dexterous of gamers to outdo themselves. Arcade mode plays exactly like it sounds: You have all your moves opened up to you but you have limited continues to use.

The levels are mostly linear left to right beat em up style fights, with a couple of them auto scrolling vehicle based. Most of the game will take you to places from the cartoon series, from the opening level Channel 6 to the sewers and eventually, Dimension X and the Technodrome. You can also be assured that the Foot Clan will not make it easy on you; just like the games of old there are certain types of Foot Clan soldiers that will cause you to switch up strategies on the fly or overwhelm you with numbers. Throw in various types of Mousers, Triceritons, Rock Soldiers, Roadkill Rodneys  and even Pizza Monsters while you’re at it. The bosses are no slouches either: while it’s a foregone conclusion you will have to deal with Rocksteady and Bebop, did you think that you would also be dealing with, of all villians, TEMPESTRA?

Better question: does anyone remember her? (Most likely you don’t. Look up the episode “Leonardo vs. Tempestra”) It also helps that not only is there voice acting, there is voice acting from the original voices of the Turtles themselves.

The game’s soundtrack is a banger as well; composed by Tee Lopes, there are tracks also from various other artists like Mike Patton, Jonny Atma and most notably, Ghostface Killah and Raekwon which has to be heard to be believed. (Really, it sounds like a Shredder vs TMNT Rap Battle) The game also features local and online play for up to 6 players (at the time of this review there is an issue with the PS4 edition that limits it to 4)

If there’s any gripe I have about the game, it’s the length and lack of post game content. The only real challenge after the game is finished is to try to do all of the achievements in Story Mode (good luck trying to not get hit on stage 16…) or to beat the game on higher difficulty modes. But the game plays well enough to warrant repeated game sessions, especially with friends (or strangers) and that’s what’s most important in a game like Shredder’s Revenge. The game is a back to basics brawler that reminds many game veterans what made the previous older games fun why introducing a new generation to a  play style that they can really enjoy. If you want a game to play that is awesome both solo or with friends, Shredder’s Revenge is a optimal choice.

…oh and for the record if anyone ever wants to play with me, I call dibs on April.

[tamachan221]

I'm so glad I decided to make a base for her outfits lol

Her Initial/Hidden City outfit isn't really meant for fighting, and I kinda wanted to give something for different occasions. She doesn't get a mask until a bit later but it looks good with everything else. It's not too different from her usual get up, but it's different enough lol For Kimmy, I normally try to stick with early 2000's punk/pop, emo, (pastel) goth, or scene styles with pinks and black. Rise, there's a little bit of Renaissance/Princess/Magical/Fairy Tale mixed in too.

Kimiko- TamaChan221 TMNT- Kevin Eastman

-Buy me a Ko-fi~!-BuzzlyArt-Commissions - Instagram- Twitter-Twitch-YouTube-

[fearsmagazine]

Rob Liefeld’s SNAKE EYES: DEADGAME Rules December with DECLASSIFIED One-Shot and Trade Paperback

Rob Liefeld, the fan-favorite writer/artist and creator of Deadpool, fulfilled a lifelong dream in 2020-2021 with Snake Eyes: Deadgame, a five-issue G.I. JOE miniseries. IDW will revisit Liefeld’s unique vision with the release of Snake Eyes: Deadgame Declassified and the release of the Snake Eyes: Deadgame trade paperback.

“Working on Snake Eyes, and G.I. JOE specifically, was a highlight of my 35 years in comics. I hadn’t been inspired like this in a long while,” says Liefeld. “These are legendary characters and it was a privilege to work with them, and with IDW and Hasbro to create this body of work.”

The debut of the 48-page Deadgame Declassified, invites fans to peer behind the mask of G.I. JOE’s iconic ninja commando… and behind what made Rob Liefeld’s Snake Eyes: Deadgame into a phenomenon! Never-before-seen material from throughout the limited series fill this one-of-a-kind edition, from sketches, layouts, and designs to an unbelievable look at the phenomenal inks over Liefeld’s dynamic pencils from artists including Neal Adams, Ryan Ottley, Whilce Portacio, Ed Piskor, Tom Scioli, Marat Mychaels, Jerry Ordway, Dan Fraga, Kevin Eastman, and more!

Liefeld says, “Working on Deadgame Declassified was bittersweet as I was reflecting on the outstanding process of working with the most legendary collection of talent that has come together on a single comic in decades. I want to thank my editor John Barber for the best experience I’ve ever had.”

The long-awaited collection of the Snake Eyes: Deadgame series will be available for sale, just in time for the holiday season. Action-packed from front to back in Rob Liefeld’s signature style, this trade paperback sees Snake Eyes in a deadly race against time and face-to-face with Storm Shadow

“I’m so excited for the entire saga to be collected in trade form, and even more excited to promote it and get it into consumers’ hands!” says Liefeld.

Snake Eyes: Deadgame by Rob Liefeld ISBN 978-1-68405-795-5 $19.99 US / $25.99 CAN 144-page, full color softcover, 7” x 10.5” On-Sale: December 7, 2021

For information on how to acquire G.I. JOE comics and graphic novels from IDW, please contact your local comic shop or visit www.comicshoplocator.com to find a store near you.

[cinnamonscramble]

Essentially Fan Art - Props to Jim Lee for his 1990s stylings of Wolverine, Kevin Eastman & Peter Laird for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and but also Jim Henson for his live action take on the Turtles.

[popculturebuffet]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1990 Review: Still Possesses Turtle Power After All These Years

Cowabunga all you happy people! I freaking love the Teenage Ninja Turtles. I grew up with it from Turtles in Time, which was my first video game, to the 2003 cartoon, which I covered the first three episodes of last month, and on to present day as I re-read the idw comics after finally reading the original eastman and laird run of mirage, and impatiently waiting for Shredder’s Revenge to come out after a LONG drout of no good TMNT games. I”m a fan of these heroes four, their dynamic as a family, the endless possiblities that come from it’s long history and ablitlity to go anywhere in any genre, and the wonderful goofy shit that happens when you have a franchise about mutant turtles learning ninjitsu from a rat and fighting a dude covered in knife covered samurai armor. 

So with me finally covering the guys after almost a year last month and with a new movie set to debut at some point this year, I had the bright idea to revisit the FIRST TMNT movie after way too many years of not watching it. This movie is anear and dear to my heart: When I first started getting into the boys big as a kid with the 2003 cartoon, I badly wanted more turtles. But back then it wasn’t nearly as easy to glom onto some more of the sewer shock pizza kings: Streaming sites with all the cartoons on them weren’t all that accesable, dvd’s were expensive for the 87 cartoon, Mirage wasn’t reprinting the comics in any meaningful way and my local comic shop didn’t have any at all and I could only play the SNES when my brother had it set up on occasion like at our Grandma’s farm. 

As you probably guessed though there was one exception: the original 1990 movie, which I got at Walmart for 5 bucks and haven’t let go of since. It was one of my first dvds and is still one of my most precious. Said film hit the spot just right as like my beloved 2003 series, it was a mildly goofy but still fucking cool adaptation that stuck closer to the mirage comics, even more than the 2003 series would, while taking a few queues from the 87 series. This film is as precious to me as the 2003 series and a with a brand new movie coming up, I figured it was the exact right time to dig into this classic: what makes it still good to this day, what’s fun to point and laugh at, and how the heck Jim Henson got involved in this. So join me under the cut as I take a look at my boys first theatrical outing and why I still love watching a turtle. 

No One Wanted To Make This: Before we get into the film itself some background. As usual I struggled a bit, but thankfully found some help in the form of this Hollywood Reporter article.  It’s a fascinating read worth your time, providing an oral history of the film from the people who worked on it. 

The film was the baby of Gary Propper, a surfer dude and road manager for the prop comic Gallagher, aka that guy who used to smash watermelons but now has instead opted to smash what little’s left of his career by being a homophobic douchenozzle. He found an ally in Showtime producer Kim Dawson who’d produced Gallagher’s special. I don’t think there will be more of an 80′s sentence than “Gallagher’s surfer dude agent wanted to make a teenage mutant ninja turtles movie”. Propper was a huge fan of the comics, and with Dawson’s help convinced Laird and Eastman to let them option it to studios. 

It may come as a shock to you but the road agent for a homophobic watermelon man and a producer at a niche cable channel wanting to make a movie based on an underground comic book about masked turtles at a time when the two most recent comic book movies were Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and Howard the Duck, did not go well. Every door in Hollywood got slammed in their face, even Fox> Even the eventual backer of the film, Golden Harvest, a hong kong action film studio, took months to convince to actually back the film. 

Things did not get easier from there: The films writer Bobby Herbeck had trouble getting a story agreed on because Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s working relationship had deteroiated horribly from the stress so naturally the two could not agree on a damn thing and argued with each other. Peter Laird  made a tense siutation even worse by constnatly sniping at Herbeck and feeling he was a “Hollywood outsider infringing on his vision and characters”

Granted the script was apparently not great... but Pete still comes off as a pretnetious ass who views his weird indie comic as THE HIGHEST OF HIGH CALLINGS HOW DARE YOU SOIL IT. And continued to be kind of a prick like this throughout the rest of his time with the property. 

Thankfully the film found i’ts voice, vision and director in Steve Barron. Barron was a music video guy who knew the producers and while reluctant, eventually dove into the project rightfully thinking the film would need to be a mix of the mirage comics and 87 cartoon, keeping aprils’ reporter job, the turtles lvoe of pizza and their iconic color coding from the cartoon but adapting several stories from the comics as the backbone of the film. The guys liked barron MUCH better and things ran smoother. 

Barron also brought in one of the film’s biggest selling points and it’s most valuable asset: it’s triumphantly awesome Jim Henson costumes. Barron had worked with good old Jim on the music videos for Labyrinth, and while it took some convincing since the comics were violent as hell and that wasn’t Jim’s style, Barron eventually got him on board. This naturally doubled the budget, but given Henson’s costumes STILL hold up today and look better than the cgi used in the platinum dunes films... it was a good call. And this was brand new tech for jim, having to invent tons of new ideas and mechanisms just to make the things work, and said things still were absolute hell on the actors. Jim later ended up not liking the film for being too violent... which I find hilarious given how many muppets got eaten or blowed up real good on his show but regardless, I thank this legendary and wonderful man as without him this film WOULD NOT have worked. The costumes here look great, feel realistic, and you can’t tell the actors were dubbed much less horribly suffering in those suits. Much like Disney Land. 

The film would get picked up for distribution by New Line, and despite i’ts weird as hell origins and the long shot it had.. the film was a MASSIVE hit at the box office, owing to a combination of Batman 89 the previous year having proved comic book movies can work for audiences, the cartoon’s runaway sucess, and a massive marketing campaign. The film made it’s mark. So now we know how we got here let’s get into the film itself. 

What’s the Story Morning Glory?:

So the story for this one is largely cobbled together from some of the more notable arcs Eastman and Laird did before handing off the book to others full time as the stress of the company and the mounting tension with each other made it near impossible to work together on the book itself. 

To Save time i’m just going through what hte movie takes from the comics plot wise now to save me the trouble later:The movie takes elements from the first issue (The Turtles, Splinter and Shredder’s backstories, Shredder being fully human and the main antagonist, Shredder’s design and the final rooftop showdown that results in Shredder’s death), second and third, (April’s apartment over her dad’s old store and the turtles moving in when their home is ransacked and splinter has gone missing), the rapheal micro series (A tounge in cheek way of cashing in on the Mini-Series craze of the 80s, a one shot by modern standards and something that’s tragically been underused as an idea as only TMNT and MLP have used the idea at IDW, Raph meeting casey and their fight with one another), the return of shredder arc (One of the turtles being ambushed and mobbed by the foot and then thrown though a sky light (Leo in the comic and Raph here), the turtles being horribly outnumbered by them, Casey coming ot the rescue and metting the non-raph turtles for the first time, and them being forced to escape when the place goes up in flames), their exile to northampton (April writing in a journal, casey working on a car with one of the guys and one of hte guys looking over hteir injured brother), and finally, their triumphant return which was very loosely adapted as there are no deformed shredder clones and shredder not being dead yet in this version was not brought back by a colony of super science worms. 

So as for how this all comes together: Our story takes place in New York: A crimewave is high with muggings mysterious. There are a ton of phantom thefts going around and at most people have been seeing teens responsibile. And the police.. are at about this level of useful:

The only person doing something is April O’Neil, played by Judith Hoag. Hoag is easily the standout of the film, giving us a strong, confident woman with a wonderful sense of humor. She honestly might be my faviorite April O Neil, and given we’ve had some great ones with 2003, 2012 and Rise, that’s not something I say lightly. I honestly wish I’d recognized her in more stuff as she was both on Nashville and the mom in the Halloween Town films, and most recently was on the ScFy show the magicians. She’s a talented lady and i’m glad she’s still goin. 

April is a reporter for Channel 3 like the cartoon, though for some weird reason her boss from the cartoon is replaced by Charles Pennigton, played by Jay Patterson, whose currently dealing with his troubled son Danny, played by Micheal Turney. Pennington is horribly useless at both jobs: At work he tries to ease April off calling out Chief Sterns, who refuses to listen to April’s evidence gathered from japanese immigrants that the crimes resemble similar ones in japan in favor of trying to get charles to shut her up. Danny meanwhile is a member of the foot becase his dad thinks shouting out him and talking about him like he’s not there and generally being a dipstick will actually do anything to help him. 

I love the concept for the foot here. In addition to being a Ninja Violence Gang as always, they now recruit new members by finding kids without families or with troubled family lives and giving them a sense of family with the foot, and sweeting the bargin with a giant cave filled with arcade machines, a skate ramp and general late 80′s early 90′s kids goodies. Is it rediculous? Yes. Is it also clever as it gives Shredder an easy army of plausably deniable theives that he can pick the best out of to put in his elite that will be tirelessly loyal to him and him alone? Also yes. 

So April being public about this stuff gets her attacked, which naturally leads to our heroes coming in, first in the shadows and later directly when April wont’ give up on the case and Shredder sends some ninjas to go shut her up.. which he does weirdly as the guy jsut slaps her and tells her to cut it out like he’s on a domestically abusive episode of Full House. Raph saves her, and we get the turtles origin.. though weirdly they cut it in half. We get the ooze portion but Splinter’s past with Saki, Saki’s murder of his master and his master’s partern Tang Shen is left for later in the film and the fact Shredder’s saki is treated as a big twist despite the fact the biggest audience for the film would be kids... and kids would’ve been familiar with the cartoon where the giant brain monster routinely screeches out saki at the shredder. Maybe Barron just thought he was an alcoholic I don’t know. It just would’ve made more sense to have it all at once and let the audeince put it together. 

April becomes good friends with the turtles over a night of frozen pizza and camradrie, but the Splinters return home to find it ransacked, Splinter kidnapped by the foot, and are forced to Stay with april. Charles meanwhile tries to get April to backoff because he made a deal with the police to clear Danny’s record, without TELLING her any of this mind you, but I will save my rage on that little plot point for in a bit as Danny who he drug along sees the turtles and tells the Shredder. 

So we get the return of the shredder arc as Raph goes through a window, our heroes fight valiantly, and Raph’s friend Casey who he met earlier shows up, the two having bonded as all true friends do.. by beating the shit out of each other ending with raph shouting DAMNNNNNNN really big and dramatically into the sky for some reason. The Turtles and friends escape with an injured raph from April’s burning second hand store. She had a second hand store it was poorly established and only there because she had it in the comics. 

Our heroes retreat to a farm April’s grandma owned in Northampton, Massachutes, where Mirage was located at the time the original comics where they were exiled to the place were written and a location that has been a staple of the turtles ever since. The turtles slowly recover, lick their wounds, talk about who hooked up with who on gilligans island etc, before Leo connects with Splinter via meditation, who tells them to come back. Splinter also starts to connect with Danny and convinces him to swtich sides.. or at the very least squat in the boys old home. 

The boys return home, find danny, and prepare, Danny goes back and ends up giving away the Turtles are home.. but the turtles are ready and in an awesome sequence kick the fuck out of the foot squad sent for them with some well prepared steam vents. Casey goes to get splinter since Danny told them and with Danny’s help, finds him, since Danny found out they were gonna kill him. Casey beats up Tatsu, shredder’s right hand man, and they get him out. 

We get our final fight which is awesome up until the climax.. which is splinter casually tripping shredder with nunchucks and thier bloody history being kind of rushed and unsatsifying. Casey crushes shredder with a garbage truck, April gets her job back, more on that in a moment, she and casey hook up, and we end with the fucking awesome song T-U-R-T-L-E Power by partners in cryme. Seriously check it out it’s fucking triumphant. 

The song is just good.. cheesy? Sure but that’s half the fun. It’s the gold standard for movie theme songs for them and stacks up handily with the various animated series themes.. all of which slap. Okay... ALMOST all of which slap. Fast Forwards is aggressively medicore, which is doubly suprising to me since 4kids was REALLY damn good with theme songs. It was one of the three things they were best at along with finding VERY talented voice actors and setting japan based works in america because merica dammit.  

The plot is very solid: It skilfully packed half of eastman and laird’s run on TMNT into 90 mintues while adding things like April’s job at channel 9, the way the foot recurited kids etc. The plot flows well for hte most part and apart from one annoying subplot we’ll get to never has a moment that feel unecessary or dosen’t pay off later. And the stellar plot and fun pacing of it helps boilster the characters that do work... and help paper over the ones that are so thin the’yd fall down a grate...

Our Heroes, Villains and Annoying Middle Aged Guys:

Yeahhhh character is hit and miss here. Some are rather strong, others are the bare basics for the character their adapting and most are just to serve the plot but some work some don’t,  So let’s talk about it starting with our boys:

Raph is the most fleshed out of the turtles, being the main focus of the first 2/3 of the film, and having his anger be part of what SHOULD be a character arc, learning to temper it. And while granted MOST TMNT properties do this, to the point that Rise Raph is so loveable in part because his boisterous bruiser big bro attitude is a refreshing break from the usual grumpus we get. But at the time this hadn’t been done in every version but the 87 cartoon, so exploring it was valid.. but despite saying this should be a thing htey just forget about it and the most plot relevance he gets is going thorugh a window. He dosen’t really get a resolution.. his arc just kind of stops dead for the final half and it’s one of the film’s weaker points, one I only just now noticed on this rewatch. He’s still the most entertaining. 

Leo is the weakest of the turtles. He really lacks a personality here mostly just being leader and while his spirtual side is touched on, it’s  mostly a plot device. He’s just kinda the leader because he was in the comics to the point Partners in Cryme called Raph the leader. His role in getting taken out by the foot was taken by Raph, so he just has.. nothing to do for most of the film other than gripe at raph ocasionally and say orders. He’s probably the worst Leo i’ve seen outside of Next Mutation. I prefice that because after watching Phelous’ review it’s VERY clear those four are the worst versions of the characters, and no personality is still better than either having your team do nothing or yelling at them as your personality. I chalk this up to the Mirage Leo, and the mirage turtles to a poit being kind of bland. Not TERRIBLE characters, especially for the time, but not nearly as fleshed out or individualized as they woudl be in other adpatations, and with most traits LEo DID have, like his badassery flat out gone, he’s just.. nothing here. 

Mikey and Donnie are a double act here with both sharing a brain. Interestingly instead of his normal genius character, Donnie is Mikey’s best friend and the two simply trade jokes and schtick together. The two are interchangable.. but easily the best part of the film and a lot of the most memorable gags and lines, from Ninja Kick the Damn Rabbit! to “Do you like Penicllin on your pizza”, are from them. Thier there almost entirely as comic relief but it works, with both clealry being more modled ont he 87 cartoon turtles, a move that helps lighten the mood in darker moments. Their just genuinely charming and it’s intresting to see such a diffrent version of Donnie, and other incarnations, specifically the 2003 and Rise versions, would retain the sarcastic edge. 

Splinter is splinter. That’s about it, he’s peformed well and the puppet is amazing but he gets kidnapped a half an hour in and outside of influcencing Denny, more on that in a moment, and finishing Shredder he dosen’t do much but spout exposition. He’s not bad or anything, but he’s essentially a rodent shaped plot device. He was also puppeted by Kevin CLash, aka the guy who does Elmo. So there you go. 

April on the other hand.. is truly excellent. This might be my faviorite April. Judith’s april nicely blends the cartoon and mirage versions: She has the cartoons energy and job, but the comics sheer will and casual nature. Judith just oozes personality and her April is just a joy to watch, from her breezy chemistry filled interactions with the guys to her confrntation with Chief Sterns, knowing she’ll get thrown out by the asshole. She’s confident, and even when afraid dosen’t back down to her attackers and even helps out during the sewer ambush. I mean it’s a pot on the head but still it’s neat. She’s easily the best part of the flim and the most fleshed out of the cast. The worst I can say is they kinda shove her store from the comics, Second Time Around, in there for no other reason than it was in the comics: It dosen’t come up until it’s needed for the foot’s assault on her place. But overall.. she’s just fantastic to watch. 

Speaking of fantastic to watch, Elias Koteas is fantastic as Casey. Seriously he’s only second to the 2003 version in my eyes, getting the concept of a testorone filled average guy who decided to just go out and hit people with sports equipment after watching too much A-Team.. I mean that part of it’s not in this version but it’s implied, just right. Like judith, Elias is just really funny to watch and his big scenes, showing up just in time during the foot assault on april’s place and his fight with Tatsu are some of the best parts of the film, the former taken directly from the comics. This version isn’t without problems: His friendship with Raph, his most endearing aspect and one that has been carried throughout eveyr version Casey’s important, with the only exception so far being rise and we have a movie to fix that, is absent here. HE does save the guy, but they don’t really bond or anything. In fact he disappears for about half an hour after his big fight with Raph. But... again he’s just so damn entertaining, down to his JOSEEEEEEEEEEE Conseco bats (There was a two for one sale!).

Shredder is just a LITTLE better than splinter, if only because his actor projects a true aura of menace and I feel this version had some influence on the pants crappingly terrifying 2003 version. And the idea of the foot recurting teenagers like I said is a good one: He gives them home and a cause, they give him plausably deniable backup. And his fight with the boys in the climax is really awesome... the conclusion sucks but otherwise h’es okay. Not the deepest villian, but he has enough presence to be enjoyable.

His right hand man Tatsu, whose been adapted ocasionally since this and reimaigned as Natsu in the IDW comics, a female version, is also fine. He’s your standard grimacing goon but has enough presence to work. 

So that brings us to the penningtons. Charles, april’s boss at the station and his son Danny who’s joined the foot as he feels his dad dosen’t love him. Charles..is about as interesting and likeable as a dog turd and is the worst aspect of the film. No debate there, he just sucks. He sucks so hard he’s classified as a black hole.  The film wants you to see him as a put upon wokring dad whose frustrated with his son’s increased moodiness, skipping school and crminal undertakings and just wants to help him and loves him deep down. The problem is his actor’s delivery instead of concerned.. is just pissed. He just seems pissy and upset about the whole thing and comes off like he’s only mad about Danny doing this because he’s embarassing him and not because you know, it’s bad. When confronting Danny about stealing, he dosen’t consider MAYBE he’s part of a gang or needs help, but just wonders “Why are you stealing when I give you stuff”. Because, Dipshit, sometimes kids do crimes not because they need the stuff but because they WANT to, and because they want to act the fuck out. 

The most he does for the kid is agree to try and get April to back off the police when Cheif Sterns offers to let Danny go and not put him on record in exchange for it. The problem.. is this makes him even MORE unsympathetic. While I do get wanting to help your child, I do and it’s a sucky position... he again should be sympathetic.. but he handles the thing so badly it sucks. He just tells april to ease off, with no reason given, then fires her when she SHOCKINGLY dosen’t give up taking the guy whose refusing to take her hard work seriously or actually solve the crime wave problem to task for his shitty behavior as ANY person facing a shitty, corrput cop would. She just wants to hold him acountable and get him to actually do something. He clearly knows her on a personal level too as he talks about his issues with his son freely with her, something you don’t do with an employee unless their also a friend on some level. 

He could have TOLD april what was going on. She’d be furious at Stern’s naked corrpution and prioritizing shutting her up over actually solving crimes.. and thus put at least some of that energy into shutting him down or finding a way around it, going to the papers or something like that. Even in 1990 pre-internet, there were ways to get around Sterns blackmail and expose him so someone who’d actually do the job could get the job. Instead he just comes off as a selfish coward who rather than try and fight the guy blatantly abusing his power and using Charles own son as  barganing chip, goes along with it because it’s the easier option to simply bow to him instead of TRY and stop this. And it’s not like he’s even going after a beloved public figure or someone who could hide behind his rep: Sterns was blatantly failing a crime wave, April had called him out on his failrues and coverups multiple times. The public was against sterns.. finding out he tried to blackmail the media into shutting up about him would PROBABLY end him... I only say probably not because the public wouldn’t skewer him, but because police tend to escape consequences for blatantly murdering someone on a daily basis and Andrew Cumo is STILl mayor over in new york, the same city this movie takes place, 31 years later, depsite EVERYONE asking him to resign over a long history of sexual harassment and a more recent but still horrible history of hiding death numbers. I don’t doubt people being stupid enough to ignore this or the bilaws with cops being stacked enough for him to get away with it, but just because someone gets away with a crime dosen’t mean you shoudln’t try and go after them in the first place. Fuck. Charles. Pennington. 

Danny on the other hand is FAR more interesting and I think gets way too much flack when it comes to this subplot. Unlike his dad, whose dead weight, Danny is intresting: He provides a POV character for the foot’s MO in the film of taking in wayward teens, and his character arc is pretty engaging, slowly realizing the foot dosen’t care and that hte turtles are the good guys. HIs actor does a great job and while not the biggest presence, he’s not a bad addition to clan hamaoto and I wish other adaptations would find a way to use him. The pull between doing the right thing and his found family is a good struggle. My only real issue with his plot is the moviies flawed aseop about family. It tries to contrast shredder and his using the kids blatnatly with Splinter and Charles really loving their sons. And it works with Splinter and the kids because despite being a tad strict, Splinter clearly loves his sons and works with them to help them. The problem is ENTIRELY with Charles and Danny. As I said Charles love comes off as transasctional: He either thinks he can buy it or just expects it because he shot a bunch of goop into Danny’s mom after two minutes of disapointment. It dosen’t work with them because neither option is good for Danny. His father is neglectful, chooses throwing his jounralistic integrity out the window over talking to his son or his best friend about another way, and abrasive. Danny is no saint, he does do crimes, but it’s clearly a result of a shitty upbringing and the shredder and co actually offeirng him the love he desperatly craves. Danny goes to the foot because his dad is bad at his job but the film never adresses that and just expects Danny to go back to his dad because the plot says so. Danny would HONESTLY be better off with Splinter. No really. Sure he’d have to live in the sewers.. but he did so for a few weeks in the course of the movie. He’s fine down there. Splitner actually cares about him and took an intrest to him and knows how to raise a child. Let him become the fifth turtle. An aseop about family is not a bad thing: Loaded subject that it can be given how many outright abusive families exist, i’m one of the lucky ones who dosen’t have that issue, family is an important thing and can be a source of comfort and support. But this film tells you you should love and respect someone who does not love, respect or value you because he spent a minute in your mom’s vagina and that’s not how family should work and is outright dangerous to kids in an abusive situation. Love the film otherwise but fuck this aseop skyhigh. 

Final thoughts:

Overall though.. the film is bodacious. It’s funny, well paced, has an awesome cast, and outside of a certain bald asswipe... it’s a really good superhero film. Is it the best i’ve seen? Nope. Not even close and character wise most of them are as thin as a wet paper bag covered in ranch dressing. But it’s still a fun as hell with awesome corepgraphy, a killer soundtrack, seriously the soundtrack is damn excellent and only didn’t get it’s own section because I didn’t have enough to say and some of the best effects work i’ve seen in a film in the turtle suits. If you haven’t seen it I urge you to check it out: it’s a breezy 90 minutes, it’s on hbo max and it’s a shell of a time. Will I do the next film? 

We’ll see how this one does like wise and such, but I will be doing the rise film whenever it comes out this year. So look for that and keep possesing turtle power my dudes. If you liked this review subscirbe for more, join my patreon to keep this blog a chugging, comission a review if you have more turtle stuff you want me to cover, and comment on this. What do you think of the movie, what are your thoughts on the review, what can I do better, what other turtle stuff would you like me to cover/ Let me know and i’ll see you at hte next rainbow. 

[lunatiksart]

This my Homage piece to the original tmnt comics by Kevin Eastman & Peter Laird. Drawn in that black & white style.

[diogenescynic2288]

Review of Naive Interdimensional Commando Koalas issue #1 (And to the best of my knowledge only)

Review of Naive Inter-Dimensional Commando Koalas issue #1

What is it? Comic book; indicia gives a date of October 1986; there's also a joke at the end of the indicia about parodying the cover format of Ronin; glossy color cover; non-glossy black and white interior; approximately 29 story pages, 2 pages of paper dolls, and 2 pages of ads; Published by Independent Comics Group, Story: Sean Deming, Finished Art: Gerald Forton, Breakdowns/Covers: Danny Green, Cover Colors: Sam Parsons, Letters: Steve Haynie, Editing: Cat Yronwode and Dean Mullaney; the inside cover also includes writing credits for the songs quoted inside, and there's a photo of a real koala and a short text box about a chlamydia outbreak ravaging the koala population. Deep background: The comic book industry experiences a lot of boom and bust cycles. One of the boom cycles in the 80s saw an explosion of independent comic publishers trying to carve out a wedge of that pie from the Big Two, DC and Marvel. Many of the independent companies produced black and white books. One of the biggest hits of this time was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles book, a black and white self-published by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. The book was partly a parody of trends at the time: ninjas in Daredevil, mutants in the X-books, and they tried to emulate the look of the covers of the Ronin series with their own cover. The success of the TMNT led to other companies doing parodies of their parody. And that is how we ended up here. Plot Summary: In Australia in an alternate dimension of anthropomorphic animals, a band called the Koalas is playing a gig at the Burrow. They play their loudest song ever, “Slap That Bass”, a song written by Gershwin in our dimension, and then they get pulled through a dimensional vortex. The Koalas are a four-piece and all named Bruce. These initial four story pages are printed with the artwork upside down because Australia. They land in a delicatessen, probably in New York City, in the dimension of the Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters, a dimension that has many fewer anthropomorphic animals and more “normal” humans. The Koalas head to a fruit stand and start a fruit fight with passers-by, when one of them gets hit over the head by an old lady's umbrella. A mysterious pair of men in a car watch this incident. Koalas end up at the same car dealership as the Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters and fight them for no discernible reason. Fight is inconclusive. Obvious gag with someone saying the name Bruce out loud and all four Koalas and the hamster named Bruce all replying. Koalas are brought in by government agents. They are sent on a mission to a Middle Eastern country to overthrow an unfriendly Sheik Ratal N'Raul and reinstate the friendly Sheik Yerboobie. The Koalas do meet the resistance movement loyal to Sheik Yerboobie, which leads to the romantic subplot between brainy keyboardist Koala Bruce and Sheik Yerboobie's daughter. Sheik Ratal N'raul is overthrown by the Koalas, the brave resistance fighters, and the power of rock. What's Good About It? The crisp, fairly realistic art style works here. A lot of the mutant ninja mutant explosion books went very deliberately extremely cartoony; this one didn't. Some of the jokes land enough to make me grin or even slightly chuckle out loud. It's also a key moment in Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters continuity, as this is the origin point for the RV, Rodent Vehicle. What's Not So Good About It? They only ever published this one issue. Never revived the characters again at another company like Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters was. The Sheiks's names were old jokes when this book was new and kind of a little bit some sort of -ist like racist. What The..? Moments: Gershwin's “Slap That Bass” is the loudest song ever? Where did the dimensional portal come from? Did the Koalas actually receive any actual commando combat training? Rating: 3 stars out of 5. It was truly a competently executed humor-action book. Method of Acquisition: Bought for full back issue price somewhere between 1988 and 1993 at the Book Stop comic

book store in Wyoming, Michigan.

[thecomicsnexus]

TMNT ANNUAL 2022 MARCH 2022 BY JUNI BA, RONDA PATTINSON, KEVIN EASTMAN, TOM WALTZ, BOBBY CURNOW AND SHAWN LEE

The turtles do an expedition to their old lair to get some closure, but something will intercept them and make their lives miserable, unless they move on.

SCORE: 8

There is something that has become a cynical joke in comics in the past decades... death. Nowadays, characters die and then return, or supporting characters die, and then one day are silently retconed into life again.

TMNT has taken death more seriously (sure, someone very popular has resurrected, but it is within the parameters of the lore of the series). Splinter has been dead for a couple of years now, and the very decompressed mutant town story has been dealing with the Turtles and Jennika, trying to make sense of their lives without their master.

But in this issue the Turtles are actually pushed to their emotional limits, to overcome their grief for master Splinter.

And what better way of doing that, than a supernatural/mutant menace?

Sure, the whole thing may not make much sense, but it still works in terms of character development.

And the fact that the turtles use the same bandanas to give themselves the feeling of being a unified team, really look amazing on the page.

Now, the style is a little bit indie, which fits the franchise, but maybe the villain could have been a little more clear. It was said that he used to be a slug, I am not sure I would have gotten that impression without reading the dialogues.

Still, it’s a very nice story for the Turtles, who by now, had a lot of time to mourn their father.

[scienceninjaturtle]

story by TOM KING, MATT WAGNER, SOPHIE CAMPBELL, REX OGLE, AND DARCIE LITTLE BADGER

art by PAOLOE RIVERA, MATT WAGNER, SOPHIE CAMPBELL, STEVE PUGH AND MORE!

cover by EVAN "DOC" SHANER

ON SALE 8/17/21

$5.99 US | 40 PAGES | FC | DC

variant by GABRIELLE DELL'OTTO

variant by KEVIN EASTMAN

prestige format

6 of 6

It's the final issue of this free-form anthology, featuring the Metropolis Marvel in new stories, bedazzled in his signature colors. It's the only place to see Superman chasing down headlines in a classic style and taking pause to reflect on growing up on a farm in Smallville. Not to mention, the return of Streaky the Supercat by superstar cartoonist Sophie Campbell (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)!