Comics
Eastman and Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles premiered in May, 1984, at a comic book convention held at a local Sheraton Hotel in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It was published by Mirage Studios in an oversized magazine-style format using black & white artwork on cheap newsprint, limited to a print run of only 3,000 copies. Through a clever media kit that included an ad placed in Comic Buyer's Guide #545, the public's interest was piqued and thus began the Turtle phenomenon. The small print runs made these early comics and trade magazines instant collector items, and within months they were trading for over fifty times their cover price. The name "Mirage Studios" was chosen because of Eastman and Laird's lack of a professional art studio at the start of their career, before their creation made them both multi-millionaires.
Mirage also published a bi-monthly companion book entitled Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, featuring art by Ryan Brown and Jim Lawson, which was designed to fill in the gaps of continuity in the TMNT universe. This put the original series and Tales in the same mainstream continuity, and the two are thus canon to each other. The title's first volume was from 1987–1989, released in alternating months with the regular Eastman and Laird book. All seven issues of Volume One have been collected in trade paperback form twice, and twenty-five issues of Volume Two have been collected in trades of five issues each.
As the TMNT phenomenon proliferated to other media, Eastman and Laird would find themselves administrating an international merchandising juggernaut. However, this prevented the two creators from participating in the day-to-day work of writing and illustrating a monthly comic book. For this reason, many guest artists were invited to showcase their unique talents in the TMNT universe. The breadth of diversity found in the various short stories gave the series a disjointed, anthology-like feel. Fans stuck with the series, and what was originally intended as a one-shot became a continuing series that lasted for 104 issues spanning four separate volumes.
In June 1996, Image Comics revived the title in what is considered "Volume 3" of the comics. It was a slightly more action-oriented TMNT series and although notable for inflicting major physical changes on the main characters, Peter Laird, co-creator of the TMNT, has said this volume is no longer in canon as he began publishing Volume 4 at Mirage Publishing. As an explanation, he offered in the pages of Volume 4's letter column: "It just didn't feel right."
After taking back the series from Image Comics, Mirage Studios resumed publication of a fourth volume in December 2001, under the simple title TMNT. After the publication of issue #28, writer Peter Laird placed the series on an eight-month hiatus to devote himself to production of the recent TMNT movie. However, after that eight months had passed Mirage's official website went on to list the series as in "indefinite hiatus". In January 2008, Mirage had finally confirmed that the series would return in May 2008. Issues 29 and 30 had a limited printing of 1,000 copies each, and were available through the official TMNT website. Although the purchase agreement with Nickelodeon allows Laird to produce up to 18 comics a year set in the original Mirage continuity, no new material has been released since the sale.
In April 2011, IDW Publishing announced that they had acquired the license to publish new collections of Mirage storylines and a new ongoing series. The first issue of the new series was release on August 24, 2011. Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman and Tom Waltz write, with Eastman and Dan Duncan handling art chores.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures was a comic book series published from August 1988 to October 1995 by Archie Comics. The initial storylines were close adaptations of the 1987 TV series, but with the fifth issue Eastman and Laird decided to hand the series over to Mirage Studios employees Ryan Brown and Stephen Murphy who immediately abandoned the animated series adaptations and took the title in a decidedly different direction with all-new original adventures.
In 1989, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird created a special three-issue series of full-color mini comics for the Ralston-Purina Company. These comics were offered for kids to collect and were only available as premiums in boxes of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cereal.
A monthly comic inspired by the 2003 TV series was published by Dreamwave Productions from June to December 2003. It was written by Peter David and illustrated by LeSean Thomas. In the first four issues, which were the only ones directly adapted from the TV series, the story was told from the perspectives of April, Baxter, Casey, and a pair of New York City police officers.
The Turtles have also appeared in many manga series: Mutant Turtles (ミュータント・タートルズ, Myūtanto Tātoruzu?) was a 15-issue series by Tsutomu Oyamada, Zuki mora, and Yoshimi Hamada that simply adapted episodes of the original American animated series. Super Turtles (スーパータートルズ Sūpā Tātoruzu) was a three-issue miniseries by Hidemasa Idemitsu, Tetsurō Kawade, and Toshio Kudō that featured the "TMNT Supermutants" Turtle toys that were on sale at the time. The first volume of Japan's anime miniseries followed this storyline. Next was Mutant Turtles Gaiden (ミュータント・タートルズ外伝, Myūtanto Tātoruzu Gaiden?) by Hiroshi Kanno, which was a re-interpretation of the Turtles story with no connection to the previous manga. Also of note was Mutant Turtles III, an adaptation of the third feature film by Yasuhiko Hachino.
A daily comic strip written and illustrated by Dan Berger featured an adventure story Monday through Friday and activity puzzles on weekends (with fan art appearing later). The comic strip was published in syndication until its cancellation in December, 1996. At its highest point in popularity, it was published in over 250 newspapers.
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