One of my highlights not just of this year's Comic-Con, but of all the 14 years I've attended Comic-Con, occurred this July 13, the day Nickelodeon was most heavily promoting the new TMNT CGI cartoon series. After spending a day full of talking to the press, including the TMNT panel in the morning and a lunchtime autograph signing, that Friday afternoon the brotherhood of Sean Astin, Greg Cipes, Jason Biggs, and Rob Paulsen were on the other side of a table talking to little ol' me.
It had been meant to be a shared roundtable experience, with other interviewers, but the way circumstances worked out I found myself going solo with them. I wasn't quite prepared for that! But luckily they bounced thoughts off of each other quite naturally, which brought out some fun conversation and interesting information.
I had to miss the IDW panel in order to make this appointment, but it was obviously well worth that sacrifice. I took the audio I recorded and produced it into the video below. Enjoy!
A huge hand of thanks to everyone at Nickelodeon, especially the entire voice cast!
TMNT #12 is out today! And as it turns out, this is Dan Duncan's last issue on art duties. Many thanks to Dan for all his hard work this past year, which has delivered the Turtles' incredible return to comic book shelves! And good luck on your next adventure!
At this year's San Diego Comic-Con, Nickelodeon hosted a panel that gave fans a sneak preview of the new series, as well as a chance to see and hear the new voice actors. After all the panelists were brought out, Executive Producer Ciro Nieli showed us "The Pitch" he had presented to Nickelodeon, which ended up getting him the job. We were also shown an early test clip of animation.
After Ciro's time was up, the new voice cast for the show answered questions from moderator Rich Magallanes, Senior Vice President of Nickelodeon Animation. As we've known, the cast includes Jason Biggs (Leonardo), Sean Astin (Raphael), Greg Cipes (Michelangelo), Rob Paulsen (Donatello), Hoon Lee (Master Splinter), Mae Whitman (April O'Neil), and Kevin Michael Richardson (Shredder).
Below is a collection of all the video clips I personally recorded during this panel. I've also inserted some of the animation clips we were shown during the panel. Convention rules didn't allow the recording of these clips during the panel, but Nickelodeon released them online later that day.
Nickelodeon also released online their own recording of the panel, although it's in the wrong aspect ratio and doesn't feature the same awesome handheld qualities as the above video. ;)
Last Friday at Comic-Con in San Diego, IDW announced two new TMNT titles that will be out later this year. First up, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Annual 2012" by Kevin Eastman and Tom Waltz.
Releasing in October this year, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Annual 2012 follows the adventure of Raphael and Casey as they find themselves in the middle of a criminal escapade gone wrong. Rival clans jockey for power in the NYC criminal underworld, and the Ninja Turtles are drawn into the chaos. Expect the unexpected in this exciting, all-new tale that sets up a crucial future TMNT storyline.
The Annual will be 48 pages and in full color, with a retail price of $7.99.
Up next is "Secret History of the Foot Clan," a four issue mini-series due to start in December. The series is written and drawn by Mateus Santolouco, with Erik Bunham co-scripting.
And an unofficial announcement: I was able to confirm with Tom Waltz that IDW will be publishing a TMNT series to tie-in with the new Nickelodeon cartoon, although there is no projected time table for when we can expect to see that.
At Comic-Con last weekend, Nickelodeon hosted a "Turtles vs. Foot" battle that challenged Convention goers to choose a side in the battle of good against evil. To participate, you had to find and visit a truck parked in a parking lot next to Petco Park in downtown San Diego. At the truck, you chose your side and claimed a trucker hat that displayed your allegiance. To earn the hat you had to visit http://www.turtlesvsfoot.com and accomplish a series a tasks, the key one being sharing the promotion on Twitter and/or Facebook. (If you didn't have a smartphone to do this on, the staff at the truck was very accommodating and accepted generic sharing of the link to Twitter or Facebook, or a "promise" to do so.)
People who were spotted by the prize crew wearing their trucker hat could win a bag of TMNT goodies. Where the prize crew lurked was a bit of a mystery, but I finally spotted them running through the line to get into the TMNT panel on Friday morning, which was when I got my prize bag. I spotted them again circling the Nickelodeon booth on Saturday morning, where there was a constantly long line for the merchandise booth.
The prize bags were really neat tote bags (first seen at Toy Fair this past February) that were for sale at the merchandise booth for $20. Inside the bag the contents varied, but generally included a couple of posters (one a recreation of the first TMNT comic book cover with the new Nickelodeon CGI Turtles, one a Turtle dressed as the Mona Lisa), a T-shirt or two (the TMNT shell shirts or designer shirts available from the merchandise booth), and an autographed toy from the personal collection of Kevin Eastman.
One of the tasks on the Turtles Vs. Foot website allowed you to receive a call from either Splinter or Shredder (depending on the side you had chosen). You can hear these two pre-recorded messages below.
IDW editor Bobby Curnow has announced on the IDW message boards that TMNT #12 will be Dan Duncan's final issue as artist.
Unfortunately, during the production of TMNT #11, Dan let me know he wouldn't be able to continue after #12. So what was going to be a 2-issue hiatus has turned permanent. He got a new gig in the world of TV animation. Dan let me know with ample time, and with LOTS of gratitude, both for the opportunity, and for the fans. He's grown to be iconic with IDW Turtles and will be missed a lot. He knows he's welcome back, and we've discussed some exciting possibilities for the future, though they will be shorter in nature. At least for the foreseeable future.
The hiatus Curnow mentions was meant to be a 2-issue break for Duncan, who has been working almost non-stop of the TMNT book for the past year. Andy Kuhn (TMNT Micro-Series #2, Michelangelo) was scheduled to fill-in for issues #13 & #14, and will now also be on issues #15 & #16. No permanent replacement has been named yet.
