Issue 11: The Ninja Turtles' Comic Evolution

Hey, there, fellow heroes in a half-shell!

This week, we're examining how the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles evolved across approximately 30 years and four comic book series. 

In this episode, we're looking at: 

• The original Mirage series
• TMNT Adventures from Archie Comics
• The short-lived Image Comics series from the 90s
• IDW's 2011 series

Episode 11 Transcript

[00:00:00] Jessika: You're going to cut all this bullshit, 

Mike: Oh yeah, of course. 

Jessika: Okay.  

Hello? Hello. Welcome to Ten Cent Takes, the podcast where we share hot and delicious slices of comic-flavored facts, one issue at a time. My name is Jessika Frazer and I am joined by my co-host, the man of mystery himself, Mike Thompson.

Mike: Ooh. I like that. 

Jessika: You're mysterious. 

Mike: I'm really not. 

Jessika: You're just a voice to these people. 

Mike: That is true. 

Jessika: Let this parasocial relationship happen for them.

Mike: Fine. 

Jessika: So, Mike, do you want to tell our listeners what this here podcast is about?

Mike: This is payback for last week, isn't it? 

Jessika: Certainly is.

Mike: Yeah, [00:01:00] fine. So here at Ten Cent Takes, we like to talk about comics and we like to talk about how they are interwoven with history and pop culture. Sometimes our conversations are weird, sometimes they're funny, but hopefully they are always interesting. Come for the deep dives, stay for the swearing. 

Jessika: Fuck yes.

Mike: Yeah. 

Jessika: Well, today we're going to be taking a deep dive into the comics of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, how they got their start, the people and the publishers involved, and some information and opinions about the different iterations of this beloved comic. 

But before we go any further, we have corrections and announcements. Mike, you want to start us off?

Mike: Yeah, sorry. So I realized after the episode about the ninja turtles movies that I said, Howard the Duck was done by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, but it was George Lucas. Spielberg and Lucas worked together on some other major projects in the eighties, but not Howard the [00:02:00] Duck. You will be pleased to know that I was correct about Corey Feldman being a generally terrible human being. So, no apologies there. 

Also, we are going to continue our giveaway raffle in exchange for sending us a screenshot of a review that you leave for us on Apple podcasts.

It doesn't matter what the rating is, we love five stars, but we'll take anything. We will enter you into a drawing for a $25 gift certificate to NewKadia. If you can get your review in before August 5th, that will be roughly a month from when we first announced the giveaway, that would be great. And then we will contact the winner directly. just take a screenshot of your review, email it to tencenttakes@gmail.com, and that's all you have to do. 

Jessika: Go get you some prizes.

Mike: Yeah. 

 Jessika: All right. So good news, everyone. We now have both an Instagram and a Facebook account, so we will be posting episode updates and potentially bonus posts related to the [00:03:00] episode. So feel free to follow us. We're at Ten Cent Takes at both of those places.

All right. So, Mike, do you want to mosey along to one cool thing that you have read or watched lately?

Mike: Yeah, I guess I can be tempted to go that route. so I've been actually reading a lot of cool stuff lately. I actually just did a big run to Brian’s Comics in Petaluma, and, and had a huge haul of stuff on my pull list, cause it had been about a month since I was there and I'd added some stuff to it. But, something I picked up just this week from Brian's is this new book called the Nice House on the Lake.

It's published by DC under its mature Black Label imprint. And it's written by James Tynion IV  who he's also writing Something is Killing the Children, which I've at least told you about in the past. I don't know if I've talked about it here. 

Jessika:  I've started reading it. 

Mike: Yeah. I mean it's - Something is Killing the Children is also excellent. And this is his new [00:04:00] series and he's doing it with  Alvaro Martinez Bueno, who has recently been doing art for Detective Comics. And it's hard to describe without spoiling it, but the gist is that there is a group of people who are invited for a nice weekend at this mutual friends, insanely luxurious lake house.

And it feels like we're kind of getting set up for a murder mystery, and then things take a turn for the terrifying in a really unexpected way. And I'm really excited to see where the series is gonna to go. But if you haven't read it, pick it up. It's great. 

Jessika: You always tell me about the best horror comics, which is really cool.

Mike: I mean, a lot of them come from Brian, to be honest. 

Jessika: Thanks, Brian.

Mike: Yeah. 

Jessika: Absolutely friend of the podcast, Brian.

Mike: Yeah, no. Brian is fantastic.  If you were in the North Bay, highly recommend going to check out Brian's Comics in Petaluma, it's an awesome little shop. And Brian is one of the friendliest people you could ever hope to meet. 

Jessika: it's so cute. You have to go underground [00:05:00] kind of you like walk downstairs. It's not really underground, but it feels like it.

Mike: Also, he has a really sweet dog who hangs out in the shop too. 

Jessika: Yes.

Mike: So that's what I've been consuming lately. What about you? 

Jessika: I myself have been on quite the half-shell recently and just deep diving into turtles. And I have found the- I can barely contain my excitement. I have found the absolute best thing. Listen up turtle fans! There's a 24-hour Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle network that plays nothing but the animated into turtle series.

Like, all of the animated series, even the old school ones. it's called Totally Turtles. I found it free with ads through Pluto TV on my fire stick. This is not an advertisement, I'm just really excited and I wanted to share it with everyone. And I'm hoping that they're turtle enthusiasts listening. It's such a blast.

And despite the obnoxious children's commercials, which are horrendous and on repeat by the way, I feel so sorry for all of you parents. 

Mike: So wait, so is this, can you select the episodes you want to watch or is it like [00:06:00] an actual TV channel? 

Jessika: No, it’s like an actual TV channel. I know. So it is streaming. They kind of do this weird marathon thing where they play back like a block of one show. So I haven't seen the OG comic come up yet, but I've seen like all of the other ones, so it's pretty neat. 

Mike: I mean, there've been so many shows over the years.  I can only imagine how much content there is for them to broadcast. 

Jessika: Yeah. They have like a whole like montage in there of all the different ones. And I was like, oh, oh, look at all these shows, all these turtle shows. 

Mike: Yeah. I'll have to check that out. I, I keep meaning to rewatch the original animated movie mini series, whatever it was that they did for that led into the cartoon. 

Jessika: Yeah, we used to have some movie that was probably  some merchandising schwag from some company, but it was like a pizza monster that they were fighting.

Mike: That sounds really familiar, but I'm not sure.

Jessika: And on VHS 

Mike: Why. [00:07:00] Yeah. All right. 

Jessika: It's like a yellow case. Yeah. I'm just saying I can see it.

 So. So today we're going to be discussing the four main volumes of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Comics. But before we get into it, I want to call out my resources, cause I had quite a few again for this episode, I'm sure you're sensing a theme here with me and research. So we have the Definitive History of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle documentary, turtlepediafandom.com, which is my best friend, Kevin Eastman's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Artobiography.

See what he did there. 

Mike: Yeah. I dig it.

Jessika: Which that book, by the way, if you're a fan, Tom told me about this book, Tom Belland told me about this book and it is so good. And it goes through the first eight issues of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and it's by Kevin Eastman, so it talks about the process of it and this.

Mockups sketches that they [00:08:00] did, like actual sketches from the comic. It's just, it's really neat and lots of little details about how they were making it and stuff. So, back to my resource, I just got so excited about that. I read an article from Indiana University Bloomington's E. Lingle Craig Preservation Lab Blog, and a couple episodes of the Ninja Turtle Power Hour podcast, which is really fun. 

Mike: Yeah, that show’s great. 

Jessika: Yeah. Got a couple of tidbits from them. So, yeah, thanks guys. 

Mike: Friend of the podcast as well. They are, they have been very supportive of us in our early days. 

Jessika: Yeah. So that's, that's really fun. Now we've previously talked about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on this show.

In episode one, Mike ran us briefly through the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles history, like the startup, and mention a couple of the iterations of the characters. And in episode nine, I covered the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live action films from the nineties. If you haven't already, I highly recommend checking out those episodes for more [00:09:00] turtle-y goodness.

During this episode, we'll be going further down the rabbit hole, looking at the history of the start of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Comics, more in depth and how they evolved over the years. As another little tease, we won't be covering the rest of the merchandising television or other related media in this episode, but stay tuned because I fully plan on doing an additional episode about the Turtles.

While we'll be touching on the main volumes of comics from the overarching storyline, just know that there are micro issues and single character adventures along with a whole slew of other comics, crossovers, and pot lines that I simply don't have time to get into today, but just know that they are out there.

And, if enough of you ask really, really nicely, maybe I'll cover some of those issues in a future episode. You won't have to ask very hard.

Mike: You really won't. 

Jessika: You won’t.

Mike: I don't think you guys understand how [00:10:00] excited Jessika was about this episode. 

Jessika: excited. Like it will, he, it will show in my voice. My face is bright red, by the way, I am Scotch-Irish, my face is showing it.

All right. before we get too solidly into our main. Mike, which of the Ninja Turtles is your favorite. And has that favorite changed at all over the years as you grew up?

Mike: I think that all six year olds identify with Michelangelo when they first get into the Turtles, and I certainly was no exception. I've bounced around since. I think I'm probably closest to Rafael these days, mainly because I nurse a grudge like nobody's business. 

Jessika: Oh, is Raphael petty?

Mike: I’d like to think he is, He strikes me as the guy who would absolutely go and troll white supremacists on Facebook these days. 

Jessika: I don't know anyone like that.

Mike: No. [00:11:00] No. 

Jessika: Oh, my goodness.

Mike: Well, how about you? Which one did you identify with? 

Jessika: Well, I also really liked Michelangelo. I mean, he was the party dude after all, and he's still pretty solidly my favorite is I can absolutely relate to being a huge ham. Hi, everyone. But I have such a greater appreciation for Donatello these days, because he really is the brains of the operation.

And should he be sorted into a Hogwarts house, he would definitely be with me and Ravenclaw.

Mike: Which turtle would be sorted into Hufflepuff. Do you think? 

Jessika: Hufflepuff. I want to say that Michelangelo would be a Hufflepuff, cause he just he's just like so accepting of everyone.

Mike: Yeah, I guess, Yeah. I guess Michelangelo would be a Hufflepuff. Leo would be a Griffindor. I don't think any of them would be Slytherin, so I think Raphael would also be Griffindor.

Jessika: Not any of them probably, unless he was like, [00:12:00] Hmm, what if he was a little evil? He might be a Slytherin.

Mike: Maybe. I don’t know.

Jessika: Because Slytherins don't have to be evil. I think they get a bad rap. 

Mike: It's like ambitious or something like that. 

Jessika: Yeah. I don't know. Raphael, Raphael might be ambitious.

Mike: I mean, the first time that you met me and Sarah, Sarah had on a Slotherin t-shirt and I had on my Hufflepunk jacket. 

Jessika: I had huge appreciation for both of those things.

So. And I have to say too, that some of the more recent TV series have portrayed him in an even nerdier way, like Donatello, I mean. That I connect with even more, which is really fun. And, that's what I like best about these characters is that they really do have different relatable characteristics that makes their storylines just that much more compelling to a diverse audience, in my opinion.

Mike: Yeah. 100%.

Jessika: So, as Mike mentioned, in our first episode, the series was started by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. Throughout high school, Eastman had been trying somewhat unsuccessfully to [00:13:00] break into the indie comics market, and had had several of his proposals turned down before being picked up by a small publishing company, Clay Geerd's Comix Wave while he was still in high school. 

While he was still in high school, let me reiterate. After graduating, he moved to Portland, Maine to go to art school and founded a comic magazine called Scat with another person. After having more of his art rejected by local publishing company. One of the people at the company told him about Peter Laird with the belief that they had a lot in common.

And indeed they did. They had very similar interests, shared a love of creating and of comic artist, Jack Kirby, and immediately started doing short stories together, each bringing different strengths and new ideas to their collective works. In fact, Jack Kirby would also be a future style inspiration for the turtles Comics.

Interesting, huh?

Mike: Yeah. That actually checks out based on how bombastic the [00:14:00] turtles series became because Kirby's art, I mean, Kirby was such an iconic artists that there's this whole style of. It's like an energy explosion, it’s called the Kirby crackle, And it's those, those circles within energy beams that now it's just kind of a thing that you see in comics a lot of the time. 

Jessika: Oh, that's interesting.

Mike: And he also had that very, very sharp edged geometric shape to all of his drawings as well. 

Jessika: Yeah. Oh wow.

Mike: So yeah. 

Jessika: So this friendship and interest in the creation of comics led them to form MiragevStudios, which was named after the idea that their quote unquote studio was just Laird's living room. So it was really a play on their lack of having a physical studio space.  Their goal was to be able to make their living doing the thing that they loved best, because at this point, making comics was still very much a side hobby while they both still worked full-time, Eastman stating that he had been cooking lobsters in Amherst to get by. One of their earliest comic [00:15:00] characters was Fugitoid, whom they would fold into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles storyline later down the line.

Mike: That was the time-traveling robot, right? 

Jessika: Yes. 

Mike: I remember him. I had his action figure. 

Jessika: That's cool. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were conceived during what is described as a casual night of brainstorming Eastman drew a ninja turtle, finding the idea of such a clunky and notoriously slow creature being a ninja, really fun. He thought to himself: Okay. So what if Bruce Lee was an animal? What's the stupidest animal Bruce Lee could be?

And he's like, a turtle.

Mike: Yeah, that checks out. So this was what, like the mid-eighties?

Jessika: Yeah, they drew this in ’83.

Mike: I mean, martial arts and ninjas were such a thing in pop culture back then, too. 

Jessika: They were.

Mike: I just, I remember Chuck Norris had a really terrible ninja movie or two around then as well. And I just remember the eighties [00:16:00] and the early nineties still having this fascination. 

Jessika: that was actually part of why they drew the turtles.

Mike: Ah.

Jessika: Was, it was a play on the fact that it was, it was a parody. It was a parody on the fact that so many people were doing ninja movies and a few other aspects were also parody, but we'll, we'll get into those later. Very astute, Mike.

So, Laird drew up his own rendition after Eastman first drew up that first stupid looking turtle. Right. It wasn't even super looking, it was really cool. And with Eastman then drawing four turtles, all with different weapons and he wrote Ninja Turtles over the top. And Laird was like, you know what? Nah.

And he added Teenage Mutant to the top of the ninja turtles. So they each had a hand in making the whole collective thing. 

Mike: That's great. 

Jessika: Yeah. And  the sketches together. You can see where both of their ideas formed the larger idea, which is super neat. 

Mike: Mhmm, [00:17:00] 

Jessika: So Mike, can you read this next section for me?

It's an excerpt from Eastman's Artobiography regarding the sales of the first issue of the teenage mutant ninja turtles.

Mike: Absolutely. Tired of rejection letters and inspired by the newest self-publishing movement, especially Davidson Cerberus comic, we pooled our money and borrowed some more from my uncle Quintin to come up with enough to print 3000 black and white comics we were sure would never sell. May 5th, 1984 we premiered the first issue at a local comic book convention.

It was incredibly exciting, but I was back cooking lobsters in June. In early 1985, the sales for book two exceeded 15,000 copies. And by mid 1986, Turtles book number eight shipped more than 125,000 copies. I was drawing comics all day and supporting myself, the dream had come true. 

Jessika: That's so cool.

Mike: That's awesome. 

Jessika: One of the things that they budgeted for were special drawing boards, which would update the black and white [00:18:00] comic to include shades of gray. This board is called Duoshade by Graphix. And because I'm a little Donny in my approach to, well, everything, I had to know how this worked. So I did a little digging.

The artists would do the initial drawing and pen out the lines on a special pretreated board, then would go in with a paint brush and brush over the areas with a special developer that would reveal either a light or a darker tone hatching or pixelated pattern, depending on the developer used. This added an extra pop of shadowing without the effort of physically cross-hatching everything by hand.

And because it was hatching instead of solid color, like paint, this fit the style of many different types of hands. The way this worked is through of course, science! You see the hatch lines or pixels are preprinted onto the special board using a chemical like silver nitrate that was subsequently blanched with a substance like mercuric chloride [00:19:00] to make it invisible to the naked eye.

And two other chemicals are used to either reveal hatch or crosshatch marks, basically. One of the chemicals reveals one hatch causing the lighter shade, and the other revealed the crosshatching that was darker. And there are other chemicals that could be used in place of the ones I mentioned, and they don't seem to advertise the specific recipe ingredients for the updated formula, unsurprisingly.

But this technique was invented in 1929 and was in use until 2009 when it was considered obsolete in the face of digital art and technology.

Mike: That's so cool. I had no idea that this was a thing. 

Jessika: It's so neat. So, whenever you see like the pixelated comics and stuff, that's all that kind of board, I'm sure.

Mike: That's a really slick, I mean it makes sense that it would be obsolete now because you can sit there and just do, you know, brushes and layer masks and things like that with comics, it’s not that hard, but yeah, that’s, wow.  

Jessika: Science!

Mike: That must've been such a time-saver for them. 

Jessika: Oh yeah, [00:20:00] that definitely. They said literally it just took the stroke of a brush and you could give more depth and just shadowing to everything. Will you do me a favor and read this quote about this process that I found on the Indiana University Bloomington's E. Lingle Craig Preservation Lab Blog?

Mike: Sure. This process is very far from magic, though it surely seem that way for artists. After dipping their brushes and clear liquid, the path of their brushstrokes immediately turned dark as it traveled across paper. The phenomenon was easy to overdo, leading to images with many toned areas that, when reproduced into small comics and magazine ads, turned out cluttered and unclear  artists, commended peers who knew when to stop. 

Jessika: Yes. Gentle hand. And here, I'm going to send you a comparison.

So, the top half of this, and we will post this on Instagram, the top half is just in inked, and the bottom half is the same couple of [00:21:00] frames that are also shaded with  the Duoshade graphics.

Mike: Oh, wow. This is really slick.  Is this from the Artobiography?

Jessika: Yeah, exactly. It's from the Artobiography.

Mike: Okay. oh, okay. Yeah. So I recognize this, this is from the first issue of the original Mirage series. 

Jessika: Sure is.

Mike: And it's when they're in their rooftop battle with the Foot. And the original, like just kind of sketch or line art.

It shows Donatello, and the rest of the turtles and a couple of panels getting into these battles and it's, it's fine. It's black and white. And then you look at the difference in terms of shading underneath this. And it's insane how much depth there is. Like they added entire skyline with this.

It's crazy. It's also, I feel like it's a little bit over done on the bottom. Like with the shading like this, very clearly like the early days of the turtles, but it looks really cool, especially when you do the comparison. 

Jessika: Yeah. Yeah. And I almost wonder how much, since they hadn't been producing very much,  I wonder how much they were using these boards, [00:22:00] know, beforehand. I wonder if this has maybe, like you said, the early days.

Mike: I would be willing to bet that they were pretty new to this and, we're learning when to stop. 

Jessika: Yeah.

So, the turtles and their storyline were initially created as a parody, like we were talking about to some of the popular Comics of the time, especially Daredevil, with similarities and characters names, such as the Foot clan when Daredevil included the Hand. 

Mike: Right. 

Jessika: And in some of the situations, such as the highly unlikely way that the canister containing a radioactive solution flew out of the back of a truck, striking someone in the head hitting and subsequently breaking a glass aquarium containing four baby turtles who fall directly into a manhole where they're then covered in the radioactive liquid that leaked out of the container that broke upon hitting on the ground.

This situation highlighted the unlikely way that Matt Murdoch got his powers to become Daredevil. When a radioactive substance fell out of a moving truck and blinded him as a child. So, very [00:23:00] much a play on that. There's also the funny correlation between Daredevil's mentor Stick and the turtles mentor being named Splinter.

Mike: I never even thought about that before, but that's really funny. This is all stuff out of the Frank Miller, eighties run of Daredevil too, which he almost fetishized Asian cultures in certain ways and was very into ninjas and martial arts and noir, and you can see that later on in his other books like Sin City, but Daredevil, I feel was like, where that really got stuck. 

Jessika: Yeah. And definitely with, the parody, that's exactly what they were going for. They were making fun of that whole aesthetic.

Mike: Well, yeah, because, everything about the Miller books of Daredevil are so grim and gritty and wrought. I can't read them with a straight face, but that's just me.

Jessika: So, Eastman and Laird, like you read in that quote, didn't necessarily think that the comic was going to go anywhere. So much so that they actually killed off their main villain, the [00:24:00] shredder in the first issue.

Mike: I was going to talk about that. 

Jessika: They killed him off. They just really didn't think that there was going to be an issue two. 

I find it really interesting that a comic that was initially thought to be a one-off has turned into such a world-renowned and beloved franchise.

Mike: Mmhm. 

Jessika:  Fun fact for all of you out there. The first volumes of  the teenage mutant ninja turtles were in black and white with all of the turtles, sporting red bandanas when the covers were finally colorized after the boom in popularity of the series. The only way to really tell them apart where their respective weapons. 

Mike: That was the same case with the original Ninja Turtles video game on Nintendo.  I remember getting this when I was a kid and I was sitting there going, oh, they, they have the same color bandanas, but we know who they all are because they all have different weapons, but they were all sporting red bandanas. 

Jessika: Yeah, I think I might remember that because we had the Nintendo games, too.

Mike: Yeah. Uh, they sucked, They were [00:25:00] really hard and I hated them. I felt like I was a really bad gamer because I couldn't beat it. 

Jessika: No, honestly, in that, of course we’re, unsurprisingly, we're in a Facebook group about the Ninja Turtles. Everybody that I've read talking about the games. It's like, oh, I never beat that game, I couldn't be that game. It was way too hard. It's, it's not just, you don't feel bad. So, we read the first few issues of the Mirage comics, the OG comics, which tell the origin story of the turtles and Splinter and their quest for vengeance, for the death of Splinters, former master and their ongoing rivalry with Shredder and his gang, the Foot Clan. What did you think about these first few issues?

Mike: You know, I had never really read them all the way through before now, and it's really interesting when you're basically reading the first content ever created, when you're here at the point where you're 40 years later. It's kind of charming because there's so much exposition where they're setting everything up.

[00:26:00] It's overly earnest. It's silly. it's also much more bloody and violent than you would expect. And the funny thing is, so I was reading this digitally via Hoopla and so they actually have the colorized versions now where, it's all been remastered and everything, but I remember, the giant two page spread where they're fighting the Foot on the rooftop and it's like real bloody.

It's so strange to sit there and read all of this and have the knowledge of where they have gone with it since then. But at the same time, I can also understand why nobody in the eighties thought this was going to go anywhere. It's just, it’s, for lack of a better term, it's just, it's silly. 

Jessika: Yeah.

Mike: And, It is a parody, but at the same time, it doesn't entirely feel like a parody, it feels a little bit overly earnest.  I never would have sat there and said, this is going to be the thing that every kid under the age of 10 is going to be interested in because, it's really violent.

Like, they sit there and they straight up murder, some street punks who are, I think mugging someone. Was that what happened? [00:27:00] Like at the very end when the cops drive up and you see the bloody hands leftover and. 

Jessika: Yeah, they were just street toughs. I agree.

Mike: Yeah.  And also, it was weird to see recurring acts of basically domestic violence, because Hamata Yoshi's girlfriend is first beat up by Shredders older brother, and then Shredder vows vengeance after Yoshi kills Shredder’s brother. And then Shredder shows up in New York and basically murders first Hamata Yoshi, and then his girlfriend or wife at that point. It's more than I would have expected. 

Jessika: Yeah, well, and I love the convoluted storyline, cause I think they were having a laugh with that too. Everyone’s on a quest for vengeance.

Which is such a theme for the turtles. They're always going for some sort of vengeance because you know, of course that's their whole game. 

Mike: Yeah.

Jessika: After this. So that's yeah,

Mike: And then, like you said, shredder, when I read the first issue, he basically has a [00:28:00] thermite grenade, and gets knocked off the roof while holding it, and then they sit there and make a comment on, oh, well, I guess the shredder got shredded where they just find bits of his armor left.

I was like, oh, that was a surprise. 

Jessika: Yeah, exactly. And then they turned around and went, oh shit. Oh shit. We have to make an issue two.

Mike: Yeah. Ups. 

Jessika: Which, if you're playing it as a parody, it must be even funnier to have the person you just killed off, come back mysteriously.

I found it really interesting that April started off as an assistant to a robotic engineer when she's most often portrayed as a reporter.

Mike: Yeah.

Jessika: And she gave it, it comes back around, you know, she's she and other iterations. She becomes , a lab assistant again, or, something having to do with STEM. I also really, really liked the rough style of the comic and how the frames are very obviously hand drawn and hand lettered.

Mike: Yeah. I like how, in some of the speech bubbles, you can [00:29:00] see the letters are squeezed a little bit more together at the end cause they just ran out of room. 

Jessika: Well, and Eastman even said he was so glad to have somebody when they finally got big enough to have somebody come in and let her, because he's like, I'm so bad at spelling. It's like, I was never this person who spelled, and so there's one place because I'm just a Donatello. Hi, here I am. It's like, I saw the little, like, they meant to put “were”, but they put the little apostrophe in there and I was like.

Mike: Oops, 

Jessika: Eastman, that's adorable, but it's almost like having like  a finger print or a thumb print on some, like something handmade, like a handmade mug or something like that.

That's the artists’ imprint. 

Mike: Yeah. 

Jessika: And again, now that I know that this was written as a parody, I have a much better appreciation for the over-the-top twists and coincidences that led to the turtles’ predicaments. 

Also, can we please address the insult, slime puppy, that April shouts of bags?

Mike: It. [00:30:00] So it reminds me a lot of, in the X-Men animated series, Wolverine keeps on busting out, I think it's like, piece of gutter trash, or something like that. And you're like, oh, that's, that's cute. 

Mike: You're, you're trying guys. You're trying. 

Jessika: At what point was that, the thing? That's the thing you're going to write down right now. Okay. Right.

So, after the success of the 1987 animated TV series, the comic was getting a little too hot for just Eastman and Laird to handle on their own. And after a few issues, they hired freelance artists to help with creating the series while they took on more of a business side of things. It was really important for Eastman and layered that the artists involved had ownership and received royalties for their work.

So, there ended up being a lot of issues, not only with continuity, but also with rights and the use of the comics and the storylines created. To this day, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to find copies of [00:31:00] some of the comics created by these other artists, especially since some of the artists refused to sell the rights to their storylines or characters back to Mirage,

and therefore those issues were unable to be reprinted. So bye, bye. One of the interesting partnerships of that time was with Archie, and that's how Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures was born. The first issue was on shelves and emblazoned with the Comics Code emblem, finally, in March of 1989. Wow, that was a big sigh.

Mike: Anytime someone mentions the Comics Code Authority, I just, I feel like I need a good rainstorm to just stare at sadly. 

Jessika: While I agree with you, you have to admit that it was a rite of passage.

Mike: Yeah. 

Jessika: For, like getting into mainstream and having your your shit recognized, you know?

So that must've been huge. 

Mike: I mean, the comic [00:32:00] stores that I went to when I was a kid, they wouldn't put stuff out on the shelves. If it didn't have the comics code seal of approval. And then by the time I was like 11 or 12, because you started having more and more independent publishers that didn't adhere to it.

Jessika: Exactly. No. I mean that's yeah, absolutely.

Mike: Would you consider Teenager Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures? Would, would that be like, volume 1.5 almost?

Jessika:  Yes. Yes I would. 

So, now that the turtles were officially, family-friendly. Written and illustrated by Eastman layered and Steve Levine.

These differed greatly to the original comics. In fact, they had the same style color, and kid-friendly vibe as the TV show, which makes a lot of sense because, well, Archie. Will you give us a rundown of these comics that we read and share your opinion with us?

Mike: Yeah.

So these seem to pick up immediately after that initial TV movie animated series thing, where [00:33:00] the turtles defeated Shredder and Krang, and then trapped them in Dimension X. Shredder gets sent back to earth by crying in the first issue and has to basically start from the ground up to get his revenge.

There's a whole scene where he winds up in a park in town and some guys tried to mug him and then he basically intimidates them into giving him their money, and then he goes and takes over some, what was it Slash for Cash dojo, I think was the name of it. 

Jessika: Yeah. It was like a name nobody would have had, which I have to say about those, those street toughs, Shredder’s, like, oh, I must be a New York because I just got mugged. 

Mike: That was great. 

And then he takes the dojo over from the leader whose name is Smash, which I thought was great. And then he basically starts going about getting his revenge against the turtles, which is, he has these toughs from the gym dress up as the [00:34:00] turtles, and very obviously bad turtle costumes, and then commit robberies.

And then there's a media smear campaign where everyone is like, well, we thought we, uh, we thought that we liked the turtles. We thought they were good guys, but I, I guess they're actually criminals. It's so simple and kind of charming. I couldn't even get mad, it was ridiculous, but I, I couldn't believe what a flashback this was.

 It was nostalgia, personified, ya know.  It's very silly and very innocent and the jokes are corny and the art's pretty simple, but I really got a kick reading through it.

I haven't watched the cartoon in a couple of decades, but I immediately knew where the comic’s story was picking up.  The turtles, rely on slapstick gags rather than actual ninjitsu to defeat the criminals that they're encountering. Shredder and his crew are blundering morons, and there's this overall wholesome quality to the comic.  It's very kid-friendly, but I [00:35:00] didn't feel like I was being patronized while I read it, even though I'm almost 40 at this point. 

Jessika: Yeah. It was, like you said, it was so nostalgia, like nostalgia alley, for sure. These are the turtles and April from my childhood. You know?

Mike: Yeah, 100%.

Jessika: These are the ones, the main characters were pretty closely based on the animated series while having the rest of the miscellaneous folks being like these goofy Archie type characters.

Also, I really liked the way that they framed the TV shots to be shaped like the TVs. Like the frames of the comics were shaped, like the shape of a TV. 

Mike: Yeah, that 4:3 ratio and all that. 

Jessika: I really liked that. Yeah. With the rounded edges and everything.

Mike: Yeah, it was cute.

Jessika: You immediately understood that you were supposed to be seeing something on a screen. And it was light and it was frivolous, without the threat of any real danger.I call it a really decent kids comic. 

Mike: I've read worse.

Jessika: So volume two, moving right along, was written and illustrated by Jim Lawson and was introduced in 1993, amidst the [00:36:00] fan success of the first two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle live action films. This was also after a falling out between Eastman and Laird caused the duo to stop working together until just recently.

Mike: Which you can actually see them come back together in the Netflix series, the Toys That Made Us. 

Jessika: Yes. Yeah. Which I'm sure is going to play a large role in my next episode of this show. With this change came another: the comic was fully colored. In this series, the turtles part ways as they have no shared purpose after the defeat of the Foot Clan, they battle and defeat Baxter Stockman, who has placed his brain in a robotic body and deal with Triceratons, which are by far my favorite villains in the turtle verse.

But despite the turtles as popularity, the series only lasted 13 issues. And a couple of years. Volume two ended with sad sales numbers, [00:37:00] and a literal flood in Mirage Studios, womp womp.

In 1996, Image Comics published Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles volume three, which was written by Gary Carlson and illustrated by Frank Foscoe. They published a total of 23 monthly issues and return the turtles back to their black and white roots, but did not include the duo-shading, which I found confusing.

Mike: Mmhm, same.

Jessika: This volume was kind of a trip. It was more intense and action packed, with even more plot twists. Also, they made the turtles much more battle-worn, with turtles missing appendages or in Donatello's case being forced to become a cyborg. And, because it was now being produced by Image, it allowed the turtles to do crossover issues with characters from the Savage Dragon series.

Mike: I had those issues. I don't think I still have them anymore, but I remember, it was a big thing where the Savage Dragon basically [00:38:00] stood up his girlfriend, because he was, involved in some shenanigans with the turtles. I think she almost broke up with him at one point, because of that, in that one is. 

Jessika: I almost said good for her, but then you said almost.

Mike: Almost.

Jessika: Now, the drama with this issue is that it's no longer considered canon in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle universe, mostly because Peter Laird hadn't been directly involved in making the storyline. So, another situation where they got a little precious about the material. 

We also read the first few issues of this comic. What are your thoughts on the comic? What I just said? Anything.

Mike: I gotta be honest if I were Peter Laird, I probably would have disowned this too. Cause it's really not that great. The art is just generally confusing because there is no sense of depth or shading.

It starts you off right in the middle of a big battle. The turtles are getting shot, Splinter is kidnapped, they’re being attacked by cyborgs for no real reason [00:39:00] that you can understand, Raphael if I remember, right, is disfigured pretty badly, there's a female ninja who shows up and she is nothing but T&A.

And, if you look at the cover for the second issue, it's very male-gazey, where you see the back of a woman and it's really just her ass and legs while the turtles are facing the camera. And it’s, everything about this feels like nineties extreme with a capital X.

in all the worst ways. And it's funny because I was wondering if Eric Larson, who did the Savage Dragon was drawing this because the art style is very reminiscent of him, and he was also doing the covers. Tom Belland, our friend, I remember him telling me a story about how, at one point he was at Image Comics, and they were criticizing his art style, and he told them that they all draw women late 12 year old boys, because they’re.

Jessika: Because they do.

Mike: They're all boobs and legs and not much else. 

Jessika: I mean, I don't see a lie.

Mike:  Yeah, [00:40:00] no lies detected my friend. It's I don't know. I, I really didn't want to read any more past the first issue either. It just, it felt very forgettable and dumb and shocking for the sake of being shocking, not for actually trying to do anything good storytelling-wise. 

Jessika: Yeah, these were just, they were like, we were talking about, they were difficult to read, they were super frenzied. I didn't know where to look. And it took me a lot longer to read them because I was trying to hash out what was happening.

Mike: It was visually confusing, which is kind of the kiss of death in a comic, like the fact that it lasted 23 issues is just mind numbing to me. 

Jessika: Yeah. you know, you look at comics a lot of the time, the ones that I really connect with are the ones where you look at it and you can see the intended motion. 

Mike: Yeah. 

Jessika: I didn't get that at all here. I just felt like I was looking for the motion. It just wasn’t there.

Mike: Yeah, and even without that duo tone shading, they [00:41:00] didn't do anything, really in its place.

Jessika: Yeah, it wasn't. Wasn't great. 

Mike: Yeah. 

Jessika: And you had mentioned the outfits, it just felt like it was set in a futuristic BDSM party. 

Mike: A hundred percent. I mean, the first thing that we see is, uh, what's her name? Isn't Kimiko is that her 

Jessika: Kimiko. Yeah.

Mike: Yeah. And she shows up and basically, she looks like she is wearing a leather bondage version of Leelou's outfit from the Fifth Element. It is straps and spikes and it makes no sense whatsoever. 

Jessika: And like, let's be real. Her boobs are too big for that. Like there's no way that that's containing anything, logistically.

Mike: No. I mean it  her outfit is body paint, basically.

Jessika: Yeah, really is.

Mike: So Image Comics in the nineties, they were kind of leading  this artistic charge of just heinously unrealistic women. And as much as I [00:42:00] enjoyed the Savage Dragon and Eric Larson's various books, Tom, wasn't wrong, they drew women like 12 year olds did.

Jessika:  Mmhmm.

Mike: We can talk about this at some future point, but I'm sure there's an entire generation of kids who grew up reading comics in that era who developed body dysmorphia or just heinously unrealistic expectations for what people were supposed to look like in general. 

Jessika: Yeah. Agreed. Well, what do you say we, uh, move on to volume four?

Mike: Sure.

Jessika: Volume four was first published in 2001, and was created by Peter Laird and Jim Lawson. There was a couple year hiatus in 2006 when Peter Laird stopped to work on the TMNT movie. 

Aliens have landed and are taking up what they say is temporary residence on earth, which brings with it the added side-effect of normalizing weirdos on the street. So, the turtles are able to come out of hiding and enter more freely into society and other shenanigans with aliens that [00:43:00] may or may not be trustworthy, of course happen. Oh, and apparently the turtles are in their thirties. Same, bro, same. 

What say ye about the IDW comics we read?

Mike: I kind of dug them. It's one of those things where it feels like they are starting with the foundation that we all knew, and then they were growing it out in a different way. It's not bad, it felt kind of like a weird reboot, while also continuing a story that I wasn't overly familiar with.

We opened with a rumble between the turtles and a gang that was led by another mutant animal.

Jessika: It was a cat.

Mike: Yeah. Did he have a name? I can't remember. 

Jessika: It was Old Hob. 

Mike: Ah.

Jessika: He had an eye patch, Old Hob.

Mike: Yeah. And, and he's clearly got history with Splinter, and after they defeat them, it's revealed that Raphael is split from the turtles and he's out wandering around and he ends up rescuing pretty randomly, he ends up busting into Casey [00:44:00] Jones’ house to rescue a very young Casey from his abusive dad.

We get back to April's original roots of her being a scientist, where she's working for Baxter Stockman's lab. And then also we find out that Krang is around, but he's shown only in shadow. I seriously got some Dr. Claw vibes from the way that they first introduced crane where he's only shown from the back.

You only see the silhouette of his chair and then his hand on the phone. 

Jessika: Yeah. 

Mike: From the first issue on, you get the impression that they're taking familiar elements and then trying to. In a new way. And that was fine. I mean, my basic familiarity felt like the right starting point for where to go with it, but it, felt pretty cool and it felt like there was actually some pretty decent plot stuff that they were working with and they weren't trying to make it just all action.

And also, I really appreciated that the women did not look like Playboy centerfolds. 

Jessika: Yeah, that was helpful. 

Mike: Yeah. 

Jessika: It's hard to be a woman and read comics, I'm just like, [00:45:00] man, this isn't for me at all. Is it? 

Mike: Yeah.

Jessika: Well, I'm pansexual, it’s kinda for me, but yeah, I thought the series was fun. The illustration is great as well as the coloring. And the action sequences is really fly off the page and make the reader feel like the pictures really could have been moving.

Mike: Yeah.

Jessika: Again. Like you said, I'm loving that April gets to be a scientist again. And I like that in this one, she was the one who actually named the turtles. 

Mike: That was really cute. 

Jessika: Yeah. She was like, I'm in art history.

Mike: Yeah. Cause she was like, she was like an intern at the lab basically. 

Jessika: Yeah. 

Mike: Or work study or whatever it is. Yeah.

Jessika: And I think it's really cute that their personalities were already showing when they were baby turtles. Like Raphael was already agro. 

Mike: Yeah. 

Jessika: He's the feisty one. Further into it, Raphael gets carried away after the whole, like breaking of the canister thing. And he starts getting [00:46:00] carried away by a cat.

And that's why they there's this mutant cat, but Splinter had had some psychotropics. And so he was a little bit more with it, went and fought the cat, but he got swept up into the bag with the other stuff and got carried off by the bad guys, the baddies, and Raphael was just on his own. So he didn't have the development that the other turtles did. 

Mike: That’s actually a really nice touch.

Jessika: Yeah, it was super interesting. It's also interesting to me that the mutation and the growth was a lot quicker in this series. They really didn't turn into true teenagers because they haven't been alive for that long, they’ve only been alive for like, 15 months or something. 

So finally, I just wanted to touch on the current series that is happening right now. And one that Mike mentioned in episode one, which is the Last Ronin. 

Mike: Yes. 

Jessika: Yes. And I'm very excited about this one, and it's absolutely one of the [00:47:00] items on my pull list with another one of our local shops, the Outer Planes in Santa Rosa, the first three issues are available now.

And if you have Hoopla Mike and I have had luck finding it to borrow for free, they also have a director's cut for issue one, which has some extra fun sketchies with back, everyone. So just saying that's the one I read, cause I actually own issue one, but I did borrow it on Hoopla too, to see what the little bonuses were.

Mike: Yeah. And we've mentioned this before, but Hoopla is an app that, basically they work with libraries across the country and will just let you check out digital content.  They limit it to a certain number of items per month. How many do you get.

Jessika: I think it's like six or something.

Mike: Yeah, I get eight. It's pretty low, but like insane. But in San Francisco it's like 21. 

Jessika: Ah, okay.

Mike: But it's still a really great way to scope out contents legally, you’re not pirating it, which is great. And you know, you're also, supporting the libraries because they're working with it, but it's free to you.

So, it makes me feel good whenever I can read [00:48:00] content that way. And they've got a truly amazing selection of comics and graphic novels and a huge catalog of Ninja Turtles content. 

Jessika: Yeah. For those of you who are watching Netflix’s is Sweet Tooth, that actually was a comic and that is on Hoopla as well. I checked it out and haven't started it yet. And then it checked itself back in, cause I waited too long. Whoops.

Mike: If you get around to reading it, I would love to just hear your thoughts on it because. 

Jessika: Absolutely.

Mike: I read the first volume and I thought it was very good, but I couldn't bring myself to read anymore because I don't like reading about people being mean to kids. And.

Jessika: Oh no. 

Mike: And that's very much what it is, where , it's a guy who is kind of like a young teenager and he's very trusting and people keep abusing his trust or terrorizing him.

Jessika: No.

Mike: And I'm like, I think I don't want to read that. 

Jessika: That's why I had to stop reading Lemony Snicket. 

Mike: Yeah. 

Jessika: Yeah. I like read the first book and I was like, oh, sorry. This is really mean to children and I, my little empathetic heart is just crying.

Mike: Yeah. I don't like cruelty to kids., I don't like [00:49:00] cruelty to animals, and I don't like cruelty to old people.

Jessika:  Do you want to remind the listeners what the series is about and what you think so far?

Mike: Sure. This is actually the comic that I'm most familiar with since I've been reading. As I said on Hoopla as the issues have been coming out. This is being billed as the final in quotes, Ninja Turtle story, which takes place in this dystopian, cyberpunk New York. That's now controlled by the Foot Clan.

At some point in the past, the turtles were exterminated and only one of them survived. And now he's come back to town with kind of a bucket list of revenge. His identity is originally kept mystery, though it's really not that hard to figure out before the first issue reveals it on the final page. And the subsequent issues spin out both the world and the backstory. I've really been digging it so far.

I'm sure that I am missing a lot of little details, because I'm not the most diehard fan of the Ninja Turtles. But, that said, I've been having a [00:50:00] lot of fun with it and I love the new character designs, and also I'm a sucker for anything cyberpunk. 

Jessika: Yeah, I'm really, really enjoying this comic. The illustrations. Absolutely beautiful and colorful, even though it's set in dystopian society. They didn't go with the whole like grunge, everything is dark, which I really liked.

Mike: Yeah. It's really cool. 

Jessika: And I like the idea that the sole turtle is still being guided by this spirit or memory of his brothers, and that he still draws from the skills and strengths by, in a way, imagining what they would do or what advice they would give. So I thought that was really sweet and they did bring back elements of the original turtles.

Like you said, like Stockman's robot mousers that have been upgraded, the Fugitoid and professor Honeycutt. You know, it was just like they're bringing in all of these other things. 

It's yeah. It's, it's super interesting. Oh, and, did you notice, there's an Eastman and layered cameo 

Mike: What?

Jessika: In issue two.

Mike: No, I totally missed this. Where is it? [00:51:00] 

Jessika: So it's an issue two, and they're eating pizza and they're like, what was that? Could it have been…? Nah. Like when like a turtle is going by and they're like, that didn't happen. 

Mike: That’s great, I love it.

Jessika: Yeah. It was like younger Eastman and Laird, so super fun.

It's really sweet. So far. It's got a lot of depth to it. They have a lot of really meaningful conversations about mental health too, which I think is really.

Mike: Yeah. they've handled PTSD and. Trauma and everything in. I'm not sure I want to use the word realistic, but in believable ways. 

Jessika: Yeah. I would agree with that description. Yeah. 

Now onto our Brain Wrinkles. Which is that one thing comics are comics-related that is currently captured within the crevices of our cerebra. Mike, why don't you start us off?

Mike: Put me on the spot. [00:52:00] Yeah. So, there's been a bit of news the past couple of weeks about bisexuality being addressed and acknowledged in comics and comics related-media. So, last week on Loki, we had it revealed that Loki is canonically bisexual, which was, that was really nice. 

Jessika: Pew pew pew pew pew!

Mike: As someone who is bi, it's always really nice to see it acknowledged because you know, bi-erasure is a thing and it sucks. But this week, in fact, I think it was yesterday or Tuesday, Al Ewing, the writer that I talked about in, I believe the last episode or the episode before that he's the writer for We Only Find Them When They're Dead, he officially came out as being bisexual. He acknowledged that like he hasn't really been quiet about it, but he he's never exactly aade a formal statement or anything like that. And so he wrote a really, a really thoughtful blog post about all this and talking about how [00:53:00] often people that are within this group have to deal with imposter syndrome and, he put it really well where he said I've always looked at myself through a lens of self-hatred and self-loathing, and that's affected this. I wasn't enough in this category because I wasn't enough in any category. 

My not being bi enough was just one more metric that I could hate myself on. And it really resonated with me becauseI spent a long time, not really sure how to feel about my sexuality. And then the other thing is that the queer community is not always the most welcoming of us. 

Jessika: Yeah. I've had those situations as well, where, I'll be on an online dating site and I'm, I'm pansexual. I will, I will date anyone. Gender is not a thing to me. And it's not that it's not a thing, but you know what I mean? That's not a, that's not a metric by which I choose my partners.

Mike: Right. 

Jessika: But there were a lot of times where I would go onto somebody's profile.

And when it would say no bi girls or [00:54:00] no bis or something like that. And it's just like, and actually I stopped listening to a podcast cause they started talking about the idea that women get nervous, that you're just going to cheat on them with a guy. Which is like, if I'm in a relationship with you and we're in a relationship, we're in a relationship, it doesn't matter what my orientation is.

If I'm a cheater, I'm going to cheat on you, regardless of whether I'm like, you know, but I'm not, that's the thing you have to trust the person you're in a relationship with, and it doesn't have anything to do with their orientation. 

Mike: Yeah. I've dated a few people who felt they couldn't trust me because I had dated the other gender and, those relationships didn't last.

Jessika: Nope.

 Mike: But yeah, that is what has been rattling around my noggin for the past couple of days. So, what about you? 

Jessika: So, I wanted to circle back about the Corey Feldman concert I attended a few years back. And [00:55:00] as I had been previously speculating on whether it was the very same weird winged and lingerie-clad, ladies, Corey's Angels. And, friends, I am so sorry to report that I have some unfortunate news that it was in fact Corey's Angels.

I will post pics, they’re very blurry picks from this concert on Instagram. Also again, my apologies for being complicit in this bad cult situation.

Mike: You know, I will say that after our episode and I was reliving how terrible Corey Feldman was. I found myself rewatching a couple of his music videos, and there's such trash, but I am a little ashamed that I gave him the one 10th of a half penny on YouTube.

Jessika: I know. Right. And then you sent it to me. So you gave him two, technically.

Mike: I know. I I, mean, it is pretty funny though. When you read the Vice articles that make fun of his parties, [00:56:00] though. 

Jessika: Well, folks, that's it for this episode, be sure to join us again in two weeks for another riveting comic adventure.

Mike: Thanks For listening to Ten Cent Takes. Accessibility is important to us, so text transcriptions of each of our published episodes can be found on our website. 

Jessika: This episode was hosted by Jessika Frazer and Mike Thompson written by Jessika Frazer and edited by Mike Thompson. Our intro theme was written and performed by Jared Emerson Johnson of Bay Area Sound, our credits and transition music is Pursuit of Life by Evan McDonald and was purchased with a standard license from Premium Beat.

Our banner graphics were designed by Sarah Frank, who is on Instagram as @lookmomdraws.

Mike: If you'd like to get in touch with us, ask us questions or tell us about how we got something wrong, please head over to tencenttakes.com, [00:57:00] or shoot an email to tencenttakes@gmail.com. You can also find us on Twitter, the official podcast is tencenttakes, Jessika is Jessikawitha, and Jessika has a K, not a C, and I am vansau, V A N S A U.

Jessika: If you'd like to support us, be sure to subscribe, download, rate, and review wherever you listen.

Mike: Stay safe out there. 

Jessika: And support your local comic shop.