TMNT at the Dollar Store

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It's been a long while since I've found any TMNT goodies at the dollar store, not to mention something actually worth purchasing. So imagine my surprise today as I'm wandering through and find a stack of these 2K3 kids' plates featuring the fantastic artwork of the one and only Michael Dooney.

I snatched up two. :)

Mirage: Please do art for us, but we won't pay you

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Jim Lawson updated his blog today with a new piece of art featuring all four Turtles looking down on New York from one of its many rooftops. This fantastic piece was done for a TMNT 25th anniversary project that 4Kids is working on. Jim and all of the Mirage artists were asked to contribute pieces of art; however, Mirage got these pieces of art as freebies and did not pay the artists for the time and talent put into them.

Needless to say, this is unacceptable. Unfortunately, this attitude is becoming more and more typical of Mirage, namely CEO Gary Richardson who also attempted to cancel all of the employees' life and disability insurance last week to save the company all of $9,500 a year. The only reason this didn't happen is apparently due to a technicality (not a sudden change of heart from Mr. Richardson).

With all of the writing that has been put on the wall concerning Richardson, the only question that can be asked is: Why does Peter Laird apparently sit back and do nothing while Mirage crashes and burns and his employees, who have given the last 20+ years of their lives to the company, as well as their entire professional careers, struggle to make ends meet while he and Gary Richardson are living free and easy?

You can see the new piece by Lawson in full here.

Addendum: It has been clarified to me that 4Kids, not Mirage, requested these pieces of art and as such, it was 4Kids, not Mirage, who did not pay for them. It still seems to me that Mirage could have found it in their hearts to pay the artists for the pieces anyways, and asking for art that you don't intend to pay for, no matter who the asking party is, is in poor taste no matter what the situation.

Comic-Con International to Recognize TMNT 25th Anniversary

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Today, Comic-Con International released the themes and anniversaries it will recognize and celebrate at this year's event in San Diego, July 23-26. And yes, the 25th anniversary of the TMNT is among the celebrations!

For information on how to submit art and/or articles for consideration for this year's souvenir book, click here.

Now that's some Turtle Power!

First TMNT Movie Screening in LA January 23

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The Nuart Theater in LA will be screening the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie Friday, January 23 at midnight (Saturday morning).

Click here for details.

Thanks to Archon_Turtle for the heads-up!

T-Shirt: "The Epic Begins"

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Shirt.Woot.com is currently selling the fantastic T-shirt at left. The original run, priced at just $10, sold out in just over two hours (check out all of the impressive sales stats!). The shirt is now available for a still-reasonable $15, and with the option of free shipping is still cheaper than anything at Hot Topic. While this is currently in no danger of selling out (again), it will only be available for a limited time, so it's in your best interest to order one ASAP!

Thanks to Cherubae for giving me the initial heads-up!

Rewriting TMNT25.com: About Mirage Studios

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Savvy TMNT fans were watching TMNT25.com on January 1, when the site relaunched itself with loads of new content. However, and rather sadly, the content on the site is poorly written, features bad grammar and punctuation, and, most unbelievably, is full of inaccurate information.

If the TMNT25 team doesn't believe in the use of editors or fact checkers, that's their choice to poorly represent the TMNT brand. As easily as I could, I'm not going to tear apart the site to show off its poor use of design, poor writing, inaccuracies, etc. However, there is one page so greatly misleading that I cannot ignore it.

You would think the "About Mirage Studios" page would be the easiest page for the TMNT25 team to write. But it only took a quick glance for me to find glaring errors. As such, I did a bit of digging into my personal TMNT archive to find references and do some fact checking. The result is what you find below. I realize that this is a lot more depth than the "About Mirage Studios" page was intended to have, but if you compare the two you'll see the conflict in information, especially with certain dates.

ABOUT MIRAGE STUDIOS

Steve Lavigne, high school classmate and friend of Kevin Eastman, as well as the real-life inspiration behind Michaelangelo, was Mirage's first employee, hired in 1985 to help with lettering duties beginning with issue #5 of the original TMNT comic book. His duties would expand to coloring comics and art and penciling licensing art that was used on thousands of TMNT products sold around the world. Lavigne left the studio in 1995 to return to his home state of Maine. He still does occasional freelance work for Mirage when asked.

After giving Eastman and Laird a piece of fan art at a comic convention in Detroit in 1985, Ryan Brown was asked to "get in touch" with the studio in the letters column of the 4th reprinting of TMNT #1, published in September 1985. He did so immediately, resulting in an inking tryout for a short comic titled "New York Ninja" that would later see print in the back of the TMNT RPG supplement book titled Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures!

Passing that test, Brown was then invited to join the studio, making the move to Northampton, MA in September 1986. He would eventually use his inking skills on most of the licensing art drawn by Lavigne, as well as some comic covers. A life-long love of toys made him a perfect match for the role of the in-studio Toy Coordinator after Playmates launched its line of highly successful TMNT toys and action figures. Brown left the studio in 1995 to return to his home state of Ohio. He still does occasional freelance work for Mirage when asked.

Around the same time Brown set foot in Massachusetts and after a successful portfolio presentation, Jim Lawson was invited to move up from his home in Connecticut to join Mirage. Lawson and Brown then teamed together to draw and ink, respectively, a new companion comic title, Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Lawson would also contribute to licensing art and penciling of the regular TMNT comic book series, becoming the main penciler starting with issue #48 of original series, a role that he maintains today with Volume 4 of the series.

Michael Dooney wrote a fan letter to Eastman and Laird after the original publication of the very first TMNT comic book. Dooney, an inspiring comic book creator in his own right, kept in touch with Mirage and would pencil issue #9 of the comic book, released in September 1986, while still living in New Jersey. After moving to the studio full-time, Dooney contributed art to more issues of the original comic book, full-color paintings for the official TMNT magazine, and some of the early issues of the Archie comics TMNT series among other things. Dooney remains with the studio today, contributing art for licensing, comic books, and toy design in collaboration with Playmates Toys.

In mid-1989, after the first few issues of the Archie comic series, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures, which were simply adaptations of the TMNT cartoon series, the book was horribly late and in danger of breach of contract. Seeing an opportunity, Brown asked his friend and roommate, Steve Murphy, to collaborate with him to create original stories for the comic series. Murphy, who was writing his own comic series, The Puma Blues, and doing proofreading and editing for Mirage, was hesitant to commit to the project, but finally agreed to take on the writing duties under the pen name Dean Clarrain. Murphy left Mirage with the end of the Adventures series in 1995, but would return in January 2002 as Creative Director of Licensing and Managing Editor of Tales of the TMNT Volume 2 when the title was established January 2004. Murphy resigned from his duties as Managing Editor in August 2007, but remains in the position of Creative Director of Licensing.

With Adventures back on track, Brown and Murphy needed a permanent inker for the book. Brown contacted his old roommate in Ohio, who had just graduated from art school, and asked him to join the team. Dan Berger came to Massachusetts in August 1989; his first Turtles work was TMNT Adventures #8, published in February 1990. He has also contributed to the original TMNT comic book, licensing art, and the daily TMNT newspaper comic strip. Berger has been the Webmaster of ninjaturtles.com since 1998 and Managing Editor of Tales of the TMNT Volume 2 since Murphy's resignation in 2007.

Like Lavigne, Eric Talbot was a high school buddy of Kevin Eastman. His first work with the TMNT came with issue #17 of the original TMNT comic book, published November 1988. He would continue to contribute to TMNT comics and various licensing endeavors throughout the duration of the TMNT's popularity in the 90s and continues working with Mirage to this day.

Riding on the success of the TMNT, Kevin Eastman bought Heavy Metal magazine in 1991. His last TMNT work was the comic Bodycount, published by Image in 1996. In 2000 he sold the creative rights of the TMNT to Laird so that he could focus completely on Heavy Metal. However, this separation was not the end of his involvement with the TMNT. In 2002 he published his TMNT "Artobiography" under the Heavy Metal label and in 2005 he gave Mirage the connection they needed, with Imagi Animation Studios, to make a new big-screen TMNT adventure a reality in 2007. In 2008 he sold his remaining TMNT holdings to Laird, but with plans to republish a handful of classic TMNT stories, the first of which, Bodycount, was released the same year.

The Action Figure Conundrum

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Last week, ToyNewsInternational.com released the above picture along with the following information:

Celebrate 25 years of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with figures designed after their original comic styling! These classic figures represent the origins of the Turtles and feature all their trademark style and accessories. Collect all 4 turtles, Shredder, Splinter, and the Foot, each packaged with a reprint of the original comic. Or choose from figures that recreate Playmates' original 10 figures, based on the classic television series, complete with classic accessories and detailing. Cowabunga! Blister card packaging.

On first read and at first glance, all of this can very easily sound pretty awesome. What hardcore TMNT fan wouldn't want comic-styled TMNT figures? But umm... wasn't that the point of NECA's turtle-y awesome figures, the first wave of which we saw earlier this year? That's what myself and many other fans were counting on. So how did Playmates change from Music Turtles to Comic Turtles and where is Wave 2 from NECA? Yes, this is quite the conundrum; so let's see if we can dissect it.

To start, we need to rewind about a year and a half, to when NECA acquired its license to make the comic-based TMNT figures. Playmates has closely guarded their action figure license for the TMNT ever since the line started in 1988. NECA only got their license through a bit of accidental luck and Playmates was not happy at all.

Playmates, who for the past two years, has been releasing variant after variant of Turtles figures based on the molds for the TMNT movie series. While these were fantastic figures (for me, at least) on their first incarnation, Playmates' refusal to move forward onto something new has become a source of contention.

This all came to a head last June when Steve Murphy revealed "Music Don" on his 5th Turtle blog. Unfortunately, all comments on the blog have since been removed, but the reaction to this figure was nothing short of outrage. So much so, that two days later Playmates responded through Murphy's blog with a rather juvenile statement that amounted to nothing more than, "Neener, neener, neener. We know toys better than you and this is what will sell, not the silly nonsense you're trying to tell us you want. Neener, neener, neener." To top it off, Peter Laird posted his own, "I know better than you," ramble of a post to his own blog one day after that.

Well, Playmates and Peter Laird must also know better than Walmart, the nation's largest retailer, for come spring, they'll be dropping all TMNT toys from their stores (if your Walmart still has TMNT toys, expect them to be on the clearance shelf come December 26th).

Now, it seems that at some point, Playmates finally recanted and decided that it might be a good idea to listen to what it is the fans are begging for (or, more bluntly, based on the complete lack of sales for all the crap currently in stores). Seemingly inspired by the HUGE success of NECA's comic-based Turtles, Playmates put into plans for their own comic Turtles (see the image above).

But are these actually inspired by any of the TMNT comic books? No particular style is evident aside from all the Turtles wearing red bandannas. Some have suggested that these Turtles resemble the Turtles from the cover of TMNT Vol. 4, #1, but those Turtles were drawn by master Turtles artist Michael Dooney. I would drool over Michael Dooney-inspired action figures any and every day of the week. But I don't look at these and see Michael Dooney's Turtles. I see Playmates' standard shiny plastic and unrealistic weapons (possibly borrowed from the existing TMNT movie Turtles). One of the great successes of NECA's Raphael figure is its ability to actually hold a sai correctly; the Playmates figure is clearly not capable of this. This begs the question: Exactly whom are these marketed for?

The reason the Turtles were given different-colored bandannas beginning with the original cartoon series and original toy series was to make it easy for the kids to all tell the Turtles apart. The most common "custom" NECA Turtle figure to appear on eBay is with the bandannas for Michaelangelo, Leonardo, and Donatello painted orange, blue, and purple respectively. How is it Playmates suddenly thinks the mass market-buying public is going to embrace four Turtles that are "all Raphael?"

In the wake of these Playmates figures, NECA seems to have completely dropped off the map as they've been nearly completely non-communicative with Mirage ever since San Diego Comic-Con back in July. It's being suggested that they are now peeved with Playmates for making these comic-based figures. While there's no way to be certain of what the situation with them is (they aren't talking), it is now December and we have yet to see the release of Series 2 of their TMNT line, which was to include April O'Neil w/ Mousers, Shredder, Foot Soldier w/ Utrom, and the Elite Foot Soldier and was to be released in "Fall '08." As it stands, we may not be able to get word on the status of these or any possible future figures until New York Comic-Con in February.

As you can see, it's a long and complicated situation. Here is how I would simplify it:

Playmates, being a mediocre toy company, found huge success with the TMNT line in the 1980s/1990s. This success was so huge that they have been hesitant to move outside of the formula that served them so well 15-20 years ago. When they finally decided to venture outside of this box, instead of bringing in fresh new minds to deliver something truly new and exciting, they instead used the same, tired old minds that insisted Music Turtles were the shiz-nit. The result is a sub-par product that doesn't at all fulfill the need of the hardcore fans they're trying to pretend to acknowledge. It doesn't help that Playmates has to win the appeal of Peter Laird with everything that they do.

For Mirage is equally guilty of being run by the tired old minds of Mr. Laird and Gary Richardson. With great respect to Mr. Laird, his heart clearly isn't into running the Turtles empire these days (as he indirectly reveals in his own daily schedule). There really isn't anything wrong with this (I'm sure anyone would feel the same after dealing with the same thing for 25 years and not having a lack of money to retire on), except for the lack of a fresh young mind to step in as a replacement. The same can be said of CEO Gary Richardson, who's not only lacking in delivering anything new or exciting, but whose shady business practices would be worthy of huge scandal were Mirage a publicly traded company. Mirage hasn't hired new talent in about 20 years and there's never been an effort to replace those that have left. Is that any way to run a successful company?

To answer that question, I will simply leave you with part of what Jim Collins has to say of what he describes as "Level 5 leaders," from his book, "Good to Great:"

... ambition first and foremost for the company and concern for its success rather than for one's own riches and personal renown. Level 5 leaders want to see the company even more successful in the next generation, comfortable with the idea that most people won't even know that the roots of that success trace back to their efforts. As one Level 5 leader said, "I want to look out from my porch at one of the great companies in the world someday and be able to say, 'I used to work there.'"