Tuesday, December 25, 2007

The End























Merry Christmas one and all!

Finally we have Leatherhead and Captain Mossback from the
animation bible.
One thing you might have noticed is the wrist band communicators on all the Mighty Mutanimals . This was a concept developed for the show strictly for merchandising purposes.

Children could wear them and push a button to hear all the different Mutanimals characters shout out their own particular catch phrases.

Whatever they might have been...


This brings to a close the posting of the pitch for an animated Mighty Mutanimals television show and what might have been.

It's been fun going through all this old stuff and I have to say it brings back loads of wonderful memories.

Hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did.


Only one last thing to say and that's...



Mighty Mutanimals R.I.P.

Monday, December 24, 2007

Mutanimals Night Shift




















Above we have animation designs for that dynamic duo, Wingnut and Screwloose.

The Death's-head moth mutant is from Dimension X's Mothro Galaxy. His name is Lunawing and he has been ordered to Earth by Maligna, who plans on utilizing this looney, nocturnal nemesis to work the night shift in Earth's destruction. Lunawing has the ability, if he so chooses, to bring life or death by encasing a being within a cocoon
of sewn supernatural silk .


One interesting thing I've always heard from fans of Wingnut is how inspired they are by his story.

As a young bat boy Wingnut was keenly aware that he was different from other bat people physically.
Enduring painful teasing, rude remarks and name calling from the fellow bat children gave him a poor self-image.
But over time, and with the help of his prosthetic wings, he overcame his physical handicap to become a true superhero. This, it seems, is what has endeared a multitude of fans to the alien bat man.


All this from a comic book character. Cool.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Mutanimation Designs




















More Mighty Mutanimals designs from the animation bible.
Here we have Soakorr, heroic sea-horse warrior and friend of Ray Fillet.
Maligna's floating Hive-World is a deep-space starship and nest that is
as big as a planet. It houses the entirety of the adult Malignoid population.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

From Beyond
















I had a dream that a now blonde Candy Fine was having a hard time dealing with the death of her one true love.
One night, while working her shift in the cd and dvd section of Walmart, she kept hearing Mondo Gecko calling to her from beyond the grave. Or maybe from another dimension. This seriously freaked her out.

What does it all mean?

Posting all this stuff from my past must be having a strange effect on me.

Friday, December 21, 2007

Down The Toilet




















At the time, I remember a rash of news stories that had to do with new home construction on old waste dumps.
Great idea, huh?
The toxic fumes were collecting in the houses and all kinds of creeping crud was seeping up out of the ground into people's basements and walls.

Well, with this inspiration, Plunger the plumber was born.

A discarded Archie Adventures idea gets thrown into the Mutanimals mix.

Quoting from the Mutanimals animation bible:

"A plumber, Mr. Bradley Martin, is exposed to a thick and putrid orange slime while working on a new housing development that has been built on an old toxic waste dump. The result is a mutated super crook.

Plunger's showerhead swivels to spray polluted toilet water, slime and ooze at his opponents. He drives an attack/assault plumber's van full of a variety pollution-creating equipment. Plunger is always cackling and giggling and his faucet nose is constantly dripping."

Okay.

I also re-colored Wyrm like the Archie Adventures one.

Just for fun.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Mutanimals vs. Krang








Here is Krang in all his glory as he would have appeared in the Mighty Mutanimals animated television show.
Included also, are animation designs of Guzzler and Gunskull, two villainous assassins.
Krang looks a little slicker and not as bumpy.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Original Art by Peter and Steve



















Wanted to let you know there's more full-color, original art available from Peter and Steve. You can email Steve for details.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

For The Record




















The new Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Volume One collected book is out and it looks real good.


For the record, Murph had scheduled me to ink the new story by Jim Lawson, as well as the new frontispieces and epilogue by Jim and Murph. We both thought it would be fun and appropriate to reunite Jim and I for this collected volume. Unfortunately, by the time the pencils were ready for inking Mirage had instituted an "in-house artists only" policy and Murph had to remove me from the project... and Jim wound up inking himself.

I was, and remain, bummed.

Monday, December 17, 2007

Mutanimals Heroic Vehicles and Cudley the Cowlick




















































In the november 2, 1992 draft of the Mutanimals animation bible it says Cudley the Cowlick was considered as a vehicle, carry case and playset. That's a lot of play value! You open his mouth and put your Mutanimal action figures inside and roll him around.

A side note proposes that he be accessorized with a can of clear slime so that you can slime your action figures with fake saliva.

Also included in the pitch is the Sea Ray, the Mutanimals' underwater battle sub and a Mutanicycle with attachable side-car.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

More from the Mutanimals Animation Pitch















Deinotor, heroic velociraptor who visits the Mutanimals from the future. He comes from a time when dinosaurs have reclaimed the earth after we've nuked ourselves into oblivion. Cool.

Vid Vicious, part man, part satellite dish. Vid's chest is a television set that cannot be shut off. As a result he has been driven insane by the media. Vid is a cybermutant: An integration of man and technology. He gives new meaning to the phrase "cable-ready."

Maligna and the Malignoids





















Quoting from the Mighty Mutanimals animation bible:

"Maligna is the evil alien insect queen from Dimension X and mother to the entire Malignoid race.
Her sole purpose for existing is to see to the successful propagation of her malignoid race. She seeks out green worlds that she can turn into vast Malignoid hatcheries. She is friends with the twisted warlord Krang, a being with whom she shares an appetite for destruction."

"Malignoids are the warrior children of Maligna. With their hard insect exo-skeletons and their one-track
insect mentality, they are programmed for destruction. Little to no individuality is found amongst them and they exist only to carry out the will of their queen mother."

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Insectoid Invaders





















Animation designs of Scumbug and the alien, Toxeem from the Mutanimals developement bible.

Funny, these 15 year old drawings look so chunky now when I compare them to the streamlined animation designs of today.

Ladies and Gentlemen...the Beetles!

























With the firm belief that bugs will inherit the earth after we've trashed it, if we don't blow it up first, here are
Maligna's lieutenants, Skul and Bean the alien beetle brothers.
These two drawings are from the Mighty Mutanimals animation bible.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Mondo Mutanimals


Mondo Gecko from the animation style guide. Angleron is a new mutant created for the Mutanimals pitch. He's pals with Armaggon.
Hmmm...speaking of Armaggon, I wonder where they ripped off the idea for Street Sharks?

Bubbla the Glub Blub R.I.P.

























Here again, scanned from the original pages, is the death of Bubbla. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Man Ray was scarred for life.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

More Mutanimations


Here we have Man Ray (officially named Ray Fillet for the Mutanimals cartoon pitch) and the "Den" - the floating fortress
of the Mutanimals. Quoting from the animation bible:
"The Den is the secret high-tech headquarters of the Mutanimals. Built by Donatello to be disguised as a volcanic island, The Den is both home and a mobile HQ for the team. Ocean-based, The Den can maneuver across all the earth's seas."

Of note the text reads that Ray is to be "modeled after Clint Eastwood for voice and personality."

Go ahead punk, make my day.

Can you see that ?

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Mutanimation!







Animation drawings of Dreadmon and the creepy villain Wyrm from the Mutanimals style guide.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Ninjara Joins The Mutanimals!


More from the Mutanimals animation style guide. The Arkwind is the team's flagship. Ninjara is, well, Ninjara. The text from her page reads: "When time permits Ninjara has been training Mondo Gecko in the martial art of ninjitsu." Cool!

Mutanimals The Animated Series!










Back in 1992 the Mutanimals were being shopped around by Mirage as a spin-off of the turtles. Ruby-Spears showed some interest, so an animation bible was produced along with a style guide of all the characters, environs and vehicles by some Hollywood animator (I forget who). Plot synopses for the first season were completed, with the 13 episodes centered around the Mutanimals' efforts to combat an invasion by Maligna.

All the regular cast of the Mutanimals make the transition, although they were redesigned - streamlined you might say - to accommodate budgetary restrictions in the animation process.

Krang makes the jump from the TMNT universe to become the main villain and friend of Maligna. A host of villains both new and old are on board to help keep the Mutanimals on their toes.


Of note, you will be pleased to hear, the Mutanimals get a new member: Ninjara joins the group.

The Turtles guest star in the first 4 episodes.

In Episode 9 the Mutanimals go to Dimension X to meet Cudley the Cowlick. How's that for cool?

Above you'll find the animation drawings from the show's style guide of Jagwar and the villain, Executor.

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Leatherhead's 8 Page Story












Here's a sneak peek at my up-coming story about Leatherhead.
This plot is years old, back from my Tales days.
I've always wanted to do it, but the time was never right until Murph felt it would fit nicely in issue 38. Needless to say, after finishing the layouts and sending them off to be penciled by Fernando Pinto, I was
not able to complete the inks on time so it got shelved.
Meanwhile, my other freelance workload was increasing so that in order for it to ever see print I had to give it up.
Enter inker Joe Rubenstein, who stepped in to help out.
Scripting chores went to my good friend Doug Brammer, who you might remember, wrote a few issues of the Archie Adventure series back in the early 90's.
Dan will schedule it as soon as everything is done. I can't wait.

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Red Sells ?


Steve has a bunch of original artwork up for auction on eBay right now. Among the various pages and covers is this original Mutanimals regular series #1 blueline cover.


This is how we did colors at Mirage back then, before Photoshop came along. Interesting to note is the green background color that was approved and should have seen print. However, our editors at Archie kept saying "red sells comics," and thus wanted this first issue to have red on it somewhere. Hence the change.

I don't know... I like the "jungle" colors on Steve's original. What do you think? Does red sell comics to you? Or is it a bunch of Archie hogwash? Pete and Kev's first turtle issue was red. Hmm. Maybe Archie is right.

Tales Volume One # 6 Scans





Here are some pages from issue 6. Keep in mind I was heavily into Dark Knight and Miller Janson Daredevils at the time.

Jim penciled these and I inked and toned them.

The new Tales collected had to be scanned from the comics themselves or from old photocopies so we'll have to see if
the artwork holds up or a lot of the detail gets lost.

The best quality would be to hunt up the original issues as they were
taken from the original art. Click on the pages to see a larger image.

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Tales Pages



Back when Steve was lettering all the turtle books he would get to keep a couple pages
for his collection. Here are 2 pages from Tales Vol 1 #5 with Complete Carnage.
These are for sale so if you are interested in them just email Steve.

Out of curiosity did you like the way I inked Jim on the 7 issues of Tales?

Think my inks sucked?

Let me know. Which issue is your favorite?

With the new Tales collected coming out, I hope to do a sort of retrospective on how I approached the inks with each individual book.


If you remember, I tried a different style with each issue.


How does my inking approach compare with the current inkers that work with Jim?

I'd like to start doing a few pin-ups of the TMNT and I'd like to ink them in the style
of everyone's favorite Tales issue. My favorites are #3 , #5 and #6.

Oh, and that's the one and only Eric Talbot driving the camaro in panel 4 of the top page !

More eBay







































































Check out Steve's eBay auctions for these 3 full color head sketches!

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Wrestle Mania!



















Behold the painting that started it all. (Well, at least the wrestling turtles.) This is the art that Murph and I thought was too important to be left buried in Pete's studio
and should be seen, which is why we wound up using the designs for the Intergalactic Wrestling TMNT in the Archie series!

Historically, though, these are the costumes Pete and Kev designed for the turtles before they decided to garb them in their familiar
red bandanas, and elbow and knee pads.

The painting is 20" by 30" . Sorry for the bad picture. Didn't want to take it out of the frame. Lazy.

I think these should be a part of the official Mirage canon.

So here's the question...

Should these costumes be canon to the Mirage Universe ?

Monday, December 3, 2007

Couch Potatoes














Here's the finished commission piece. The glare in the middle is from the camera. Hard to get a real good pic because of the size.
It's 17" by 29" and was a a lot of fun to do. Steve penciled and colored it, I inked.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

More Art Auctions



















































Posting for posterity. The third installment in the continuing PETER LAIRD STEVE LAVIGNE TMNT ORIGINAL ART SERIES is almost gone.

The painting of Mike jumping has been sold but the Leonardo headshot is still up there on ebay with 6 bids. So check it out! It's over in 2 days!