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By Spencer Ellsworth Nick Roche got his start as a comics artist at IDW Publishing, illustrating and soon writing the company’s incarnation of
Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Cap Blackard, Comics, entertainment, Heroes Con 2014, kevin eastman, michael bay, teenage mutant ninja turtles, The Nerdy Show
Kevin Eastman On The Turtles Odyssey Of His Life And The New Film At Heroes Con 2014
At a Sunday panel at Heroes Con in Charlotte, North Carolina, Kevin Eastman ascended from his massive signing lines on the floor to appear in discussion of his history and work on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, hosted by Cap Blackard of The Nerdy Show.
Eastman gave a history of the first printing of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, from self-printing by photocopying, borrowing money, and cleaning out bank accounts to do it, now 30 years ago.
Eastman said that he then went back to work at a lobster restaurant in Maine, and was surprised that autumn to get requests to work on a second issue. In January of 1985, they were pleased to get 15,000 copies ordered. That was the beginning of the "dream come true" for them. Eastman was happy to show pictures of their studio and "me trying to grow a mustache" for the audience. The team did a big show in Atlanta, meeting the fans for the first time who "allowed them to make a living", and Eastman thanked the audience today for still being responsible for them.
He explained the "graphic duo shade" paper that allowed the gray gradation and "sepia feel" for the original art. Eastman's first year at San Diego, they were hoping for 10,000 people that year in a civic auditorium, signing and doing sketches. On the last day of the show, they'd go around trying to complete their own collection and standing in the "Jack Kirby line" to meet the legend. His grace with fans was an inspiration for them in the future.
Working on Turtles, he was tired of vigilantes who had these dark back stories, and they wanted to create Casey Jones, someone who was a vigilante simply because he watched too much bad TV.
With the first color painting cover for the comic, using red bandanas, Eastman just assumed everyone would keep the backstories straight, telling the turtles apart by their weapons, but only working on the cartoon show did they realize that they would need to differentiate them further.
Working Dave Sim on Turtles #8, who was a champion for creators' rights, was an inspiration because of his work on Cerebus. The first time they saw a turtle doll was when a fan who worked on the Muppets sent them a turtle, who became a mascot they "tortured". But between Christmas of 1987 when the cartoon started and the success of the story, the toys started rolling out at the Toy Fair in New York in 1988.
As the studio grew, they started working with more collaborators. In 1987, they were spending 90 percent of the time as artists, and 10 percent on business, but that ratio flipped within one year. They worked on the movies, video games, and learned that they now had to "manage" the characters to keep control over the stories the way they wanted them told. There was still plenty of time for "nerf gun fights" however.
They were skeptical about working on a movie, thinking "Dude we never thought this would work as a comic", but gradually watching their creatures come to life in 3D and going down to set, meeting Jim Henson, wowed them. The recreation of New York City was one of their first glimpses of what was "coming to life" and they knew then that it was "going to work". As they continued to work on licensing, they started to produce collections, and Eastman was still learning to "paint" to produce color work.
Three years ago, Eastman started working with IDW, and was asked to do some covers. The last Turtles story Eastman had done had been with Simon Bisley in 1986, and returning to working on Turtles stories is a big thrill for him, doing covers. He could do "big action scenes" all day long at the moment. For their 30th anniversary book, he and Bisley teamed up again, quite a reunion.
In other news, Eastman still owns Heavy Metal Magazine, and recently did a cover for it. People always ask Eastman what his dream project would be, and it would be a Turtles/Daredevil crossover, which he drew and sent to Marvel, but imagines they have crumpled it up and thrown it away.
The audience was treated to a trailer of the new cartoon, including "Ice Cream Kitty", which looked fairly psychedelic and strange, with plenty of ooze. The movie trailer, also shown, looked fairly apocalyptic, placing the Turtles right in the center of the big city destruction motifs that are en vogue right now (well, it is Michael Bay).
The panel then broke into Q&A hosted by Cap Blackard of The Nerdy Show (as well as stalwart contributor to Bleeding Cool).
Blackard asked about collaboration and Eastman said there was plenty of passing things back and forth and competing for the "cool panels" but both worked on pretty much every page of the first 15 issues.
A fan asked if there was any point at which they would have liked to do something very different from what actually ended up happening. Eastman said that working on the cartoon show had to be written for a much younger audience, 7 year olds, whereas the movie was a hybrid of more adult themes from the comic and kid friendly stuff for the show. But growing up in comics means that there are writers and artists they have always followed and are used to seeing creative team change while following characters they liked. His favorite version of Turtles is his own version of the comics, though he appreciates all their incarnation.
Blackard asked what place Mirage Studios had in creating wild things and seeing what "stuck". Eastman said at the best of times, they were putting out a Turtles book every 2 months, later 3, so they took on Tales of the Turtles to bridge the gap from other teams. That eventually included whole comics based on the cartoon series, then branching out into video games and board game development in house.
A fan asked what Turtle is Eastman's favorite is and why. Eastman loves Michaelangelo best because he was the first character, but in terms of writing, he always prefers Raphael who can be "silly" and also taken to "emotional levels".
A young fan asked how Eastman responds to all the internet pandemonium and madness related to the new film, with criticism and prediction of its quality and success. Eastman said to some extent they've always dealt with this. Early on, they were called sell-outs in the comics community for doing a "stupid kids series", and Eastman always felt like "It was our decision, our characters". Once you had fans of both the animated series and the black and white series, when they did the first movie, cartoon fans didn't like the look of the "scary" turtles. They are used to being afraid of being "crucified" for "ruining peoples' childhoods".
Eastman worked on the design of the new movie, has a cameo, and worked on the script. He thinks viewers will find it's a lot better than what they expect it will be do, doing something "new". If not, after August 8th, he'll go find a hole in the ground, he joked.
Blackard described Turtles as an "evergreen property", and yet they get more and more diverse like Batman in their stories and variations. Eastman said the only reason he's sitting up on a podium 30 years later is the fault of fans who clearly support this spread.
Blackgard asked about the "fifth Turtle" named Kirby and Eastman explained that's the origin of Venus de Milo. They came up with Kirby, and developed a whole story, did several versions of New Line script, it was dropped, picked up by another company, and eventually this was at the same time as working on the live action movie. They developed it for a TV series, but in the 11th hour of finalizing, the were asked to make the 5th Turtle a girl Turtle, and they weren't happy with the idea of incorporating her into the story and history. So, Kirby became Venus, because Hollywood "don't give a crap". Eastman worked hard on it anyway despite the circumstances.
A fan asked how Eastman feels about having Michael Bay on the film with all the "explosions" that will inevitably happen, but Eastman feels that it's likely to be "lots of explosions and also good story".
A young fan asked what inspired Eastman to create April O'Neill. Eastman said it was an idea to have someone who was smart, a scientist, an older sister figure, a modern woman who could look after herself, and a female to be part of the group.
A fan asked what Turtles material Eastman prefers beyond the Mirage stuff, and he replied that he likes the IDW comics very much, but he also has a soft spot for the first Turtles movie, which has "held up very well", though some of the more dated effects make him laugh.
The final question of the day was whether Eastman put aspects of his own personality into the Turtles and Eastman answered that he gravitates toward putting himself into Raphael and Casey. But other people, including family friends and other team members are inspiration for characters. One of his favorite was seeing Big Trouble in Little China, influencing his development of Casey Jones, asking "what would Jack Burton do?"
The Nerdy Show is doing a year long celebration for 30 years of Turtles with several shows.
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