Doodle Day, November 11, 2012

I will be participating in "Doodles for Dollars" (aka "Doodle Day") at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, MA on November 11, 2012. It's a part of the Museum's tenth anniversary "Book Signing Bash", and will feature the man himself, Eric Carle, acclaimed illustrator Tony DiTerlizzi, and me doing quick sketches -- doodles -- to help raise money for the museum. I intend to do as many black and white TMNT head sketches as I can in the time allotted (I think it will go on for about an hour or so). Here's what it says on the Museum's website:

"10th Anniversary Book Signing Bash
November 11, 2012
1:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Free with Museum Admission

The 10th Anniversary celebration continues with book signings from Iconic Images artists, special concert by the South Hadley Children’s Chorus, and “Doodles for Dollars” featuring Eric Carle, Tony DiTerlizzi, and Peter Laird ($10 per doodle.) Check back for more information about the specific schedule."

Should be fun! -- PL

Blast from the Past #331: 2003 Christmas card

Jeannine and I got to talking a few days ago about our Christmas cards, and realized that we don't have an organized archive of all of them, which we both thought would be a neat thing to have. So I am going to try to put that together, which means starting with searching the hard drive on my desktop computer for any Christmas card-related files. So far, I have only come up with three -- not an auspicious beginning.

But one of them is something that before I started looking, I'd completely forgotten about. It's the card I made for us in 2003, and it was unusual in that unlike previous cards, this one was folded differently, in thirds in a kind of accordion fashion. That way, the image of the Turtle on the Segway was on the front of the card, and when unfolded you could see the whole image.

I kind of like this one... I think the colors work well. -- PL

Highside

(I thought this comment, left on one of my previous posts, deserved a post of its own, with my answer to the question it posed. -- PL)

"mikeandraph87 said…

I noticed this weekend marks 1 years since the TMNT property was sold. How do you feel today compared to a year ago leading up the sale? I'm sure you've progressed well."

I was aware in the back of my mind that it was in October of last year that the sale went through, but I had not remembered it was this weekend. Interesting. The short answer to your question would be something like "I feel pretty good."

Now here's the long answer.

As I recall, back in the months preceding the sale, when we were going through the very complicated process of negotiation and construction of the purchase and sale agreement, I was sort of on "pins and needles", as they say. The likelihood that the sale would actually happen had waxed and waned a few times, but now it seemed that it would in fact transpire and it was a very exciting albeit frustrating time for me, as I could not share this information with anyone outside of a small circle of people actually working on the deal. Unfortunately, that meant I couldn't tell my artist friends at Mirage, which was very hard. I really hated keeping it a secret from them. I was very stressed out, though I knew it was something I needed and wanted to do.

As I have said in previous posts on this blog, I expected a huge sense of relief when the sale was through, and there WAS some sense of that, but not as much as I'd hoped. The large-scale relief was to come later, probably eight months or so later… but it did not come all at once, or neatly. Instead, it came wrapped up in a torrent of feelings which I have been calling my "emotional highside".

A "highside" is a term from motorcycle racing, explained to me once by my friend Dale Quarterley, the great roadracer I sponsored back in the days of "Team Mirage". A highside is a crash in which the rider is thrown off and OVER the motorcycle, as opposed to a "lowside" crash, which is where the bike slides out from UNDER the rider and the rider comes down on the track behind the bike.

If I am remembering Dale's explanation adequately, it goes something like this: Imagine holding a toy motorcycle, with one hand gripping the front wheel and the other hand gripping the rear wheel. Now, while you are holding on to the wheels, you start twisting them -- not turning them on their axles -- but TWISTING them in opposite directions. This action is analogous to what happens on a real motorcycle, especially a road racing motorcycle, as cornering at high speeds -- through the phenomenon of "counter-steering", which is what you do on a two-wheeled vehicle to go around corners fast (countersteering is turning the handlebars in the opposite direction -- for example, turning the handlebars left to go right) -- puts a lot of twisting force into that motorcycle's mostly-rigid frame. As you do this, the frame of the motorcycle, which contains the engine and most of the other running components of the bike, tries to keep everything together by bending ever so slightly, like a huge spring. But the thing is this -- that frame is not really meant to bend TOO much, as rigidity is important in a motorcycle frame to keep everything going forward in a precise and controllable manner. So you develop this immense torquing force which turns the bike into a huge spring… and at a certain point, the spring MUST let go.  Most often, the energy thus built up is released gradually by slowing down, straightening out the bike on a long straightway and so forth.

But sometimes it lets go drastically, violently, due to a combination of circumstances -- a bit too much steering input, a shade too little traction on the racing surface, or just a hair too much throttle from the rider, to name a few -- and in the blink of an eye, all of that immense spring-like force is released, the motorcycle's frame straightens out, and the rider gets flung over the top of the motorcycle. I understand that it is one of the least desirable ways to crash… not least because you are being flung off in FRONT of a motorcycle which may still have great forward momentum, making YOU a potential target as it slides or bounces, riderless and out of control, down the track.

In my case, what I came to realize is that for many years, over essentially the whole course of the TMNT experience, or at least during those twenty-two years when the business side of things went crazy with the mass merchandising success of the TMNT, and I was struggling to cope with that success using not much more than whatever native intelligence and wits I had, not having had any formal training in this kind of stuff (I was just a guy who liked to draw pictures, for cryin' out loud!), I was being "torqued" by it, slowly but surely, over the years. There were a lot of things I felt during that period which I dealt with by just trying NOT to feel them, as I could not really figure out any other way to deal with them.

It wasn't ALL Turtles stuff, of course -- there were other things that factored into it. But the largest share of it came from the TMNT experience and my sense of very often -- TOO often -- being a "square peg in a round hole" during those years.

In a way, it was a "highside in slow motion", if you will, because the real release of all this pent-up energy didn't come until a long time after the sale -- really, within the last four or five months. I am not even sure if this "emotional highside" has ended yet -- I still feel like in some ways I'm like that guy sliding down the race track, leathers being ground away from friction with the track surface, body pummeled by impacts against the pavement. I know that eventually I will come to a stop, and be able to pick myself up. I think I am getting close to that. Maybe I am already starting to stand up. But the thing I keep reminding myself of is this -- the "torquing" took over twenty years, and maybe I shouldn't expect the release, and recovery FROM the release, to happen overnight. -- PL

Blast from the Past #323: "Turtlemania" cover art

Some (okay, many) of the details of the history of this piece have vanished from my brain, but I do remember Kevin and I drew this (my pencils, Kevin's inks) to go on the cover of a little mini-comic kind of thing that the organizer of a small convention in Florida planned to produce and sell at the show to which he had invited us.



It was a fun trip; our host was a nice guy, and I saw cool lizards on the sidewalks. And out of that experience came several now-collectible editions of this "Turtlemania" publication. -- PL

Dover dream

Jeannine and I have just started our two-week vacation in Maine, and yesterday, to avoid a ridiculous traffic jam on southbound Route 1 and Route 95 on the way to one of our favorite New Hampshire swimming spots, I took us on a slightly circuitous route through South Berwick, ME and then into neighboring Dover, NH. At Jeannine's suggestion, I swung by the house we once rented there, just to see what it looked like these days.

It appeared about the same as it always had, though the paint on the wood trim seemed a little brighter, but what was most interesting was the "For Sale" sign in front of the house.

For many years I have nursed a small fantasy of someday buying that house, and doing something with it. What, you might ask? Well, aside from just being a convenient place to use as a base station for our yearly vacation jaunts into New Hampshire and Maine, my daughter has suggested it could make a nifty TMNT museum, and I had thought about that, but it is pretty small and there is not a lot of parking around it. (Not that a museum of this type would draw a lot of visitors… which is another reason, among many, to NOT do something like that. More to the point, would I even WANT to get involved with a project like that at this point in my life? No, thank you very much.)

The real impetus to buy the place is simple -- nostalgia. It is, after all, the place where Kevin Eastman and I created the Turtles in November of 1983, but much more important, at least to me, it's where Jeannine and I really started our lives together, and where we got married in the house's small back yard. (And it IS small… much smaller than I remembered!)

However, as we discussed it later, that kind of nostalgic fantasy is fun to indulge in up to a point, but it quickly gets bogged down in practicalities. The house would need to be taken care of, and we would be absentee landlords. We would very likely not stay in it often (it was a lovely place to live in some twenty-seven years ago, and closer to the ocean -- about ten miles as opposed to about a hundred and twenty -- than where we live now, but if we were to buy a place closer to the ocean -- something we've talked about, and continue to consider -- it would have to be a LOT closer to the ocean -- like, within sight of it). This house in Dover is on a small side street, surrounded fairly closely by densely-packed houses and apartment buildings… not really our dream location.

So, as much as it appeals to the nostalgic fantasy part of me, I think it's probably wisest to just hold on to the good memories of the place. -- PL

"Things Change…" Part Three: Falling away

I picked up a new MacBook Pro laptop yesterday, and have spent a few hours copying old files onto it, re-installing some key programs, and generally trying to get things back to the way they were -- or at least close to it. So far, it seems to be going pretty well. AOL is working, I can get on the Internet, and I don't think I have lost anything vital (of course, that estimation could change as things progress).

I have made one big decision, though, which I was not expecting… but which I can see now is connected to the continuing series of changes going on in my life.

I have not -- and won't -- copy my "TMNT Stuff" folder to the new computer.

"TMNT Stuff" was a folder I'd maintained across several laptops -- in fact, I think it started on my G4 desktop Mac. I put just about everything and anything TMNT-related into it -- art that I'd scanned, some of which I'd colored in Photoshop; all of the art files for the 2K3 TMNT animated series that Lloyd and his crew sent me for approval; plots and notes for the stories I created for the TMNT Volume 4 comics, as well as the Quark (and later InDesign) files for the comics themselves; various interesting emails and web clippings related to TMNT; some important contracts, various drafts of movie scripts and treatments and outlines; and so on. The last time I checked (about a minute ago) this folder was slightly over ten gigabytes.

(I am not deleting this folder full of files -- I will be keeping it on a back-up external hard drive in case i ever need to refer to it again.)

Lately, I have been feeling the sense that the Turtles are "falling away" from me -- I know that is imprecise and very subjective, but it is the closest I can get to articulating how it feels. After the sale of the TMNT property to Viacom in October of 2009, I felt some immediate relief, some significant lessening of my sense of responsibility to and for the Turtles. But I didn't experience the real -- you know, I'm not even sure how to describe it, but I had this kind of anticipation of a feeling of liberation or something. And it wasn't there.

But now it is.

In the last week or two I have actually found myself breathing more easily, and feeling like my shoulders and neck aren't as tight as they once were. I find myself thinking of the Turtles as something from my past, not something of my future… which is a little freaky, given how long they'd been part of my present, but even as a freaky feeling it isn't unpleasant. It feels… relaxing.

I'm not eradicating the Turtles from my life. That would be foolish -- they are a huge part of my personal and creative history. And someday, maybe I will play with them again. But right now, that day seems very, very far away.

Those of you who were/are fans of my TMNT Volume 4 comics may wonder what this means for the continuation/conclusion of that series. I have been doing some soul-searching about that, and at the risk of disappointing some of those fans, I have to say that I don't think the series will ever be finished as I had originally intended it to be. I just don't have any desire to leap back into it, and in fact, I am a little afraid of trying to do so, given my sense of of trepidation about getting sucked back into the world of the TMNT at a time when I finally feel like I am getting free from it.

So this is my current thinking: The art, scripting and lettering for issue #31 is done, and the inking on the art for #32 is just about finished. I may finish up the final details of these two issues, and publish them not in print form but on the Web.

Following that, I will take the plots that I have written out for what would have been the concluding six or seven issues of the comic book, beef them up a little bit, and post them online, either at the Mirage Licensing site or on this blog, so as to give readers of Volume 4 a clear look at how I intended to conclude that series.

I'll have to double-check to make sure I'm within my rights to do this, but I think it will be okay. And in all honesty, at this point I think it's probably the only way this series will get anything close to its intended conclusion. I apologize in advance to anyone who will be disappointed by this approach, but I sincerely see it as the only reasonable way to go forward, all things considered. -- PL

Blast from the Past #305: "Pursuit"

In my entire career as a comic book artist I haven't done many complete comics stories by myself. Issue #12 of the first volume of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" may be the only comic book wherein I was reponsible for everything (except the lettering). Issue #15 comes close, but Jim Lawson inked that one. And I think I did all but the lettering on the first issue of "Stupid Heroes"... or did Ryan Brown ink that? It's been so long, I don't remember.

So anyway, this following piece -- a ten-page comic story titled "Pursuit" that I wrote, penciled, inked (and, sadly, lettered) -- is kind of unusual. Not for any particular inherent qualities of its contents, but just because completing a piece like this by myself was a rarity. I'm not sure why that was. Some have suggested that -- at least as far as comic book work goes -- I work better in collaboration with others. I think there is a certain about of truth in that. At the very least, I am more productive in collaboration with others.

This short story concerns a violent incident in the "life" of P-13, a police pursuit android. It's interesting to read this and consider some similarities between it and "Fugitoid", which Kevin Eastman and I worked on together. I am pretty sure "Pursuit" came before "Fugitoid".

As you may notice on reading "Pursuit", it has an open-ended conclusion which makes it seem like I may have been considering further adventures of P-13. In fact, I even put in an "End of Chpter One" caption on the last page. Whatever my intentions were at the time, I do know that I never did anything else with this character.

I don't think this has ever been published anywhere. -- PL

Emily's musings on her first San Diego Comic-Con

Well, my daughter survived her first Comic-Con experience -- in fact, I think it's safe to say she really enjoyed herself, and so did her roommate Colleen, who attended Comic-Con with Em. I asked Em to write up something about their trip, and this is what she sent me, along with all of the photos. -- PL

The Wrath of Con

After months of planning and anticipation, our journey to our very first Comic-Con began very early Thursday morning. We left LA around 2 am, and with hardly anyone on the road, made it to San Diego a little after 4. Since we had been following Twitter updates about the Con, we were not totally shocked to see a line wrapping around Hall H when we arrived at the Convention Hall around quarter to 5 in the morning.



Almost a thousand people were already in line for the Friday New Moon panel: Some were sleeping on air mattresses, some had miniature flashlights and copies of the Twilight books...we even saw one party that had brought their own hookah to the line.



Three Starbucks trips later, we got into another line to get our Thursday badges. This one wrapped around the convention center and extended down the edge of the marina.

Finally, around 11 am, we were herded into Hall H and found seats around the middle of the hall, although there were still two more panels to watch before the New Moon panel began at 1:45. The Disney 3-D20panel showed clips from A Christmas Carol and Tron, but of course the most exciting moment was when Tim Burton surprised the audience by bringing Johnny Depp onstage during the Alice in Wonderland panel. When the Summit Entertainment panel brought the cast and director of New Moon onstage around 2, the screams were deafening.








Even though we were sleep deprived and had been waiting for almost ten hours, I have to say, the clips they showed definitely made it more than worth the wait! It was fun seeing the cast, and listening to their thoughts on the movies, but the clips were really the amazing part. Instead of just showing a trailer or some random part, they showed full clips of two pivotal scenes from the movie. Can't wait to see the movie in November!

After the panel, we checked into our hotel and had dinner with the Mirage team before getting some much-needed rest.

On Friday afternoon, we headed back to the convention center for the TMNT Panel. Thankfully we didn't have to camp out for hours to get in this time, but it really put things in perspective for me to see so many fans lined up for the panel, much like we had the day before. The energy and enthusiasm of the crowd was amazing, and all of the panelists (Gary Richardson, Kevin Eastman, Steve Barron, Scott Mednick, Galen Walker, Matt Leunig, and Llyod Goldfine) did a great job! I even got a little teary-eyed when they first started playing the music and the interview clips came on screen.



Of course, Friday night was the big TMNT 25 party and debut screening of "Turtles Forever". I have to echo everything my dad wrote about the movie in his previous entry... it really was amazing!



Saturday and Sunday were spent mostly wandering around the Exhibit hall...I still don't think we saw everything! We were tempted to buy the Twilight dolls, but resisted in favor of two old school TMNT posters which we will frame for our apartment ("Leonardo Leads" and "Raphael: Cool but Crude") and two t-shirts, a TMNT "Drug Free is the Way to Be" and a "It's Clobberin' Time" with the Thing.

Overall, it was a great, crazy weekend. San Diego is beautiful, and the Convention was ridiculous and so much fun... hopefully we will be back next year, now that we are officially Con veterans. It was great to see the Mirage crew, and to meet all of the many other people who have worked on the Ninja Turtles in all their various forms. And of course, it was a pleasure to meet some of the fans as well!

Cowabunga!
-Emily & Colleen


Here are some more photos from Em and Colleen's first Comic-Con:

Em with the "Turtle Documentary" crew



Em with Stan Sakai



Colleen and Em with Ernie Reyes, Jr.



Mirage dudes with Turtles



Em and Colleen with Turtles

Movie news: John Fusco!

By now, you may have already heard about or read the news in "Variety" about the writer chosen for the new TMNT movie project, John Fusco. Here's the official release:

"JOHN FUSCO TO WRITE SCREENPLAY FOR
“TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES” MOTION PICTURE

Veteran Hollywood Scribe to Write Screenplay for Film Scheduled for 2011 Release

Los Angeles, CA (July 21, 2009) — TMNT Productions, in association with Mirage Studios, has signed veteran screenwriter John Fusco to create the script for the upcoming live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theatrical film targeted for release in 2011. Fusco joins the creative team with producers Scott Mednick (“300,” “Superman Returns”) and Galen Walker (“TMNT”) to re-tell the origin story of the legendary foursome of the characters co-created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird.

Fusco brings a unique perspective to the classic property, with credits ranging from the original “Young Guns” and its sequel to "Hidalgo" and last year's "The Forbidden Kingdom" starring Jet Li and Jackie Chan. He also recently completed the script for a contemporary version of the classic "Seven Samurai" for The Weinstein Company.

In addition to his film industry credits, Fusco brings years of martial arts training and inspiration to the new screenplay. His interest in Korean martial arts began at age 12, and his passion continues today through ongoing study of Shaolin Kung Fu as well as the history and culture behind these ancient practices.

"It is always exciting when you can come aboard a project that bridges the worlds of what you do with what you love,” said Fusco. “I have always been a fan of the Turtles and the world of martial arts is my lifelong passion. I look forward to this great opportunity."

“John brings to our team the perfect blend of talent, expertise and enthusiasm for the property and the genre,” said Mednick. "We are committed to bringing to the screen a vital, vibrant and contemporary effort that is the next chapter in this venerable franchise."

“Working with the original comics created by Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman will allow both the new and first generations of fans to experience the Turtles in a whole new light,” said Walker. “Tapping into the rich of history of these heroic and loved brethren should prove to be a phenomenal collaborative adventure for us all.”

“From the first stages of planning this movie, we were committed to finding a group of the most passionate, creative and experienced individuals, who appreciated the history and myth of the TMNT, to craft a new vision of the Turtles for Mirage to share with current fans and to captivate a whole new generation,” said Gary Richardson CEO, Mirage Studios.

Announcement of Fusco’s role comes as the Turtles’ 25th Anniversary “Shell-ebration” culminates its cross-country tour at San Diego Comic-Con where Fusco, Mednick and Walker will join Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman and Steve Barron (director of the original 1990's film) and others on a panel to discuss the project and the history of the property on Friday, July 24.

Peter Laird, Gary Richardson, Frederick Fierst, Eric Crown and Napoleon Smith III will serve as executive producers of the film. The project is being funded through Lightbox Productions, LLC.

4Kids Entertainment, master licensing agency for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles property, will handle all licensing activity on TMNT movie-related merchandise.

Additional information is available on the www.tmnt25.com and www.4kids.tv Websites.

---------

About Mirage Studios
Mirage Studios, Inc. is part of The Mirage Group, a group of companies located in Northampton, Massachusetts that owns, manages, nurtures and protects the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles property.

About 4Kids Entertainment
Master licensing agent for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, 4Kids Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE: KDE), is a global organization devoted to the creation, development, production, broadcasting, distribution, licensing and manufacturing of children’s entertainment products, with U.S. headquarters in New York City, regional offices for its trading card business in San Diego, California and international offices in London and Hong Kong.

Additional information is available on the www.4kidsentertainment.com corporate Website and at the www.4kids.tv game station site."


I'm happy that we can finally, officially release this information. I met John for the first time around the middle of last month -- he drove down to Northampton, and Galen Walker and Scott Mednick flew out from California, to meet with me and Gary at the Mirage offices. I was impressed with John -- he's a cool guy with a lot of intelligence and energy... and he has good kung-fu! I'm looking forward to getting into story discussions with him.

Here's a small panorama built from a few photos I snapped at that first meeting, in the Mirage Studios conference room. I wonder what point Galen is making so energetically...? -- PL



(From left to right: Galen, Scott, John, Gary.)

Blast from the Past #76 repost: PL as Turtle, with pencil

I drew this self-portrait in 1985 (I still had hair on top of my head) as a spot illustration for an interview in some magazine... I think it might have been the now-defunct COMICS INTERVIEW. -- PL