Thursday, December 27, 2012

Rick Eastman, creator/inventor of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles



When I got up today and checked my email, I found a "Google alert" about a TMNT-related story, and clicked on the link. It was mostly about Kevin Eastman and his history with the Turtles -- not a bad article, a little slapdash and loose with some of the facts, but containing a few charming details from Kevin about his childhood.

But the silliest -- okay, let's be honest -- the STUPIDEST thing about the piece could be found in the headline for it, as you can see by this screen grab I made.




I've had enough experiences with journalists and editors to know that a lot of them are either (a) rushing to make deadlines and thus prone to making dopey errors, and/or (b) just freakin' lazy. 

But this…! 

I mean, really, how do you justify a headline identifying the subject of the piece as "RICK Eastman" when the FIRST TWO WORDS OF THE PIECE correctly identify him as "KEVIN Eastman"?

Incredible. -- PL

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just curious, do you find it ironic that Eastman basically has the same role now with the comics and cartoons that you did in the early 2000's with Volume 4/Takes and the 4kids cartoon?

Eastman now discusses story ideas with Tom Waltz about the direction of the IDW comics, (whereas you wrote Volume 4, and had to approve scripts for Tales before they went ahead), he works with Nick on episodes of the cartoon, (similar to the way you and Lloyd Goldfine worked on the 4kids series together), and apparently he's read the script to the new live-action TMNT movie, similar to the way you worked on the 2007 movie with Imagi and director Kevin Munroe.

Its like a complete reversal, Eastman was dormant with the franchise for most of the 2000's while you were in charge, and now that you've sold the franchise, Eastman has been approached by Viacom to work on stuff again.

I do like it that Viacom/IDW/Nick etc. has approached both you and Eastman at points, it shows that they don't want to disrespect the material if they're willing to work with the creators, unlike the way Fred Wolf just took the TMNT license and ran with it for the old show without giving you guys any real creative input.

-Scott

Mark H said...

I see they fixed their mistake and changed Rick to Kevin. Someone was not paying attention! This seems to be a case of rushing to get a story out. We see it all too often in our modern day press.
The article itself was a good read. It is good to see that Kevin is doing well still having success with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I did get my hands on a copy of IDW’s 60-page Turtles annual. It is still half read on my nightstand. I thought the art was really cool. I have always liked the way Kevin draws the Ninja Turtles. I always thought he gave them a very edgy look. The story was a bit scattered. It was all over the place. I had a hard time following it. I liked the artwork though. The artwork done by Kevin was worth the cover price. He did some nice work. The 14 year old boy inside me wanted to love it but, my adult sensibility would not allow it. It was the story that put me off. I did have a chuckle when I saw that Kevin draws cars exactly like he did in the 80’s. All the cop cars looked like cars you would see on T.J. Hooker. I don’t know exactly why I found that humorous but, I did. It is great to see Kevin doing some work with the turtles again. I hope he has a lot of success.
Thanks for sharing this article. Have a good one,
-Mark

B.Thomas said...

Very amusing, Peter. It kind of reminds me of when I was featured in a 2011 news article for my local comic book convention. I went to the comic book convention cosplaying as the DC Comics's character Steel. The reporter was clueless as to which comic book character as I was supposed to be. When they finally published the news article, they had mentioned that my character was one of the many replacement Supermen after Superman was killed off by Doomsday in 1993. I guess someone didn't do their research, because the correct year is 1992, LOL.

Unlucky Charm said...

My nickname is Splinter. My exboyfriend was named Rick. His friends were the ones who nicknamed me Splinter in 2001.

My great grandmother's maiden name was Laird, which is why I find this post hilarious.