Baby New Year Mike!

Best wishes to you for 2009! I re-inked this old piece of licensing art for the holiday!

Looks like Steve penciled this straight from the spread in the first issue of TMNT. Licensees liked to request poses from
the original comics.

Market Update

Lots of TMNT toys are showing up at local closeout stores for under $5 bucks. Time to hit your local liquidation store and complete your collection cheap! Alien hunter turtles and the aliens, mutations, assault turtles, as well as lots of turtle motorcycles and vehicles. So when you're out bargain shopping tomorrow spend some holiday cash on the TMNT and help save the economy from total collapse.

Season's Greetings!

Turtle fans are the greatest! Best wishes to all for a prosperous 2009!!



The artwork above is based on the cool International Silver Company wooden ornaments from 1990.

Storm Drain Savers Reprint

A few weeks ago Murph asked if Steve and I could reproduce this TMNTA cover for an Australian reprint of the mini-comic, "Storm Drain Savers." No problem! Here it is.

Get your copy today!

One Man's Trash...

Here we have the junkyard theme. Two designs from 1990, both curiously called Junkman, one by Mike and the other by Jim. Playmates passed on both.


A third design, submitted to Mirage in the fall of 1991, featured a junkyard robot made from cast off stereo equipment. Mirage passed on that one.






Playmates even went so far as to have their rendition sculpted up for presentation.



They would do this sometimes when they felt particularly strong about a certain character. Still, no deal.

Body Of Work

In 1990, Murph and Dan imagine what Krang's real body looked like in Dimension X. Playmates didn't go for it.

World's Deadliest 2 - The Sequel!

A while back I submitted a story that continues immediately after the events of Tales 50 and, as luck would have it, Dan has just informed me that it has been approved! More details as they become available.

At Playmates No One Can Hear You Scream!

More for the "Mirage Mutants that Playmates Rejected" toy line, my lame xenomorphic Alienator!




























A shameless attempt at cashing in on a Playmates "theme" turtle. Rejected!































Ripley: "These people are here to protect you. They're soldiers."
Newt: "It won't make any difference."

It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It)

Here's another one for the "Mirage Mutants that Playmates Rejected" toyline.
The Aerosmith-Cinderella-Guns & Roses Mondo Gecko!

Market Watch

While searching for Red Hulk Marvel Legends and Kalibak DC Universe figures this holiday season we came across a couple karai figures, a movie Don and some Mini-Mutants turtle figures at Walmart and Target. Nothing much to speak of. The aisles were packed with panicked parents pushing carts full of Star Wars, Hulk, Batman and Iron Man stuff though.

"Do you hear the grasshopper that is at your feet? "

My grasshopper-man mutant action figure, a homage to one of my favorite shows! Needless to say, Playmates rejected it.

Cryin' Hound

One character from the TMNT Adventures got closer to being an action figure than anybody else.
Cryin' Hound made it to the "sculptural input drawing stage" but I'm afraid that's where he stayed.

Snake in the Grass

We love Pete's snake character Scalien! This was submitted to Playmates to be included in the TMNT toy line but was rejected.
I think we need a "Mirage Studios Rejected Ideas for Action Figures" toyline.
We'd collect them all for sure!

What Do We Know?

Back in the day Murph and I tried relentlessly to get Playmates to do
something, anything from the TMNT Adventures book. But there was real resistance to our ideas at every turn.

One thing we pushed hard was the "wrestling turtles" --
actual legit early Pete and Kev designs. Playmates was pumping out every conceivable turtle variant they could think of except the one that Murph and I thought made the most sense -- the wrestling turtles! Oh well, what do we know, we're
just artists.

Would you have bought Archie "wrestling turtle" figures?