Tales of the TMNT #58 in stores now!

As the space vampire Galactose ransacks the universe, it leaves dimensional destruction in it's wake. Alternate realities are laid bare.

Artwork by Dario Brizuela.

Tales #62 Character Studies

Fernando sketches up Mikey, Raph and an utrom for Tales of the TMNT #62.

Tales of the TMNT #62 Model Sheet

Here is a model sheet by Fernando Leon Gonzalez for the upcoming Tales of the TMNT #62.

Unruly Cowlick

While in the midst of our creative pow-wow about the direction and
plot points for the 3rd installment of the continuing TMNT/MooMesa
saga, Dean and I, oops...I mean Murph and I were pleasantly surprised when Pete, out of the
blue, suggested that Cudley the Inter-dimensional Cowlick show up on
Moo Mesa!





















We whole-heartedly agreed and quickly set about to make it
happen! Be sure to pick up a copy of Tales of the TMNT #52 this month.

Turtle Soup Misprint

With Halloween fast approaching we thought it relevant to mention this marvelous misprinting of Turtle Soup.
Imagine our surprise when we opened the box and found this fiasco, a Tales cover stapled to the interiors of the new Mirage title Turtle Soup.
Can't remember if any them shipped or not. This one has been kicking around the studio for over 20 years and has seen better days.

Take a look at that snazzy ad on the last page. Did any of you attend the show that year and purchase the limited edition tour shirt? Ah, those were the days!

Extra Digit

Hey, the Fugitoid only has 3 phalanges not 4 as pictured in the cover above. Where's the quality control?

Who Wants To Be A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle?

A while back I was hit with this idea for a new reality show to celebrate the TMNT's 25th anniversary entitled "So You Want To Be A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle" (working title). Stupid, right? Well the idea kept nagging at me and with time growing short I fired off a proposal to Mirage. who in turn fired it off to the appropriate parties.

What follows is a portion of said proposal:

This is a reality based television game show where 20 hard-core TMNT fans are
outfitted with a tortoise shell vest, a carapace back with a plastron
front, elbow and knee pads and bandana which they must wear until they
are eliminated. The contestants are isolated in a NYC sewer setting
and compete for cash and prizes by learning martial arts from Master
Splinter, a martial arts expert in rat's clothing. They must live
like the TMNT and endure rigorous activity with, daily training
sessions, the constant odor and filth of the sewer environment, and
can eat nothing but pizza for the duration of their stay. The show
would use progressive elimination, allowing the contestants to battle
each other, both physically and by answering Ninja Turtle trivia,
until only four final contestants remain and must use their combined
strength to defeat an actor portraying the Shredder in a series of
Battle Nexus bouts (of varying mental/physical forms). The final
contestant wins a cash prize in the season finale and the right to
be named "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle."

Other than Murph, no one really shared my enthusiasm. End of story.

50/50

Spoke with Dan this morning and the orders for Tales 50 are in. Only about a 10% jump in sales. The books should ship around the middle of September and should be available for purchase at your friendly neighborhood comic shop about a week after that.

Threads

Sneak peek at the up-coming back-up story that will be in Tales of the TMNT #50. This story is culled from my file of old, unused Tales ideas from back in the late 80's. What's old is new again.

Yellow Button Set

This is the yellow set of buttons. They are not numbered and are photocopied on yellow paper instead of white.

Final #50 Leatherhead

Here is the final design for Leatherhead for the 50th issue of Tales of the TMNT! Awesome!

Preliminary Leatherhead

Here's Paul Harmon's second rough design for the character Leatherhead. I like his style. What do you think?

Approved

The script to Tales #50 has been approved and now work can begin on the art. The creative team behind Tales of the TMNT #36, Tristan Jones and Paul Harmon, will again kick ass only this time they'll be down under in Australia. I for one am very excited about this very special 50th issue!

Catwoman

Playmates Catwoman April design drawing from 1990.


My title at Mirage for a while was TMNT Toy Coordinator. My job was to keep track of all the design work being done for all the Playmates toys: making sure the process flowed smoothly between Playmates and Mirage; keeping track of all the different design stages items were in; getting written final approval for play sets, action figures, roleplay items, etc. from Pete and Kev; organizing samples, test shots, prototypes and paint masters. It was fun and hectic. I'd kill to have that sort of job again now!

Heroic Interview

For those of you who collect fanzines here's one from 1988. Jim and I are interviewed inside about Tales, Mirage's new comic day, our favorite artists and other assorted stuff. I like the cover. Bright, happy, sunny yellow! My copy is water-stained and old. Can't imagine many of these are still around today.

Primary Colorist

Great news! If you haven't heard by now, I'd like to bring to your attention that as of issue 43 Steve is coloring all the covers for Tales of the TMNT! Another Mirage alum joins the team! Even more reason to pick up a copy today!

Jim penciling, Eric inking, Steve coloring and Dan as editor. Wow, just like the old days! Mirage fans rejoice!

One Step Closer

First off we want to sincerely thank everyone for the wonderful cards and well wishes you sent to us for the holidays!
We truly appreciate all your time and trouble! We'll say it again...Turtle fans are the best!

Hope 2008 is a fantastic year for all of you!


The inks are finished on my Leatherhead story and Joe Rubinstein did an excellent job. Still have lettering and toning to go and then Dan can schedule it for publication! What do you think? Do you like?

Can you tell how Leatherhead will fit into the story?

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.

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.

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 !