Captain Canuck
The poster formerly known as captaincanuck65
Have any of you guys read any of the old TMNT stuff? I watched a documentary online about how they took the world by storm in the late 80s/early 90s and it piqued my interest. I grew up on the first cartoon and the toys, and to a lesser extent, the movies. But I had never read any of the original comics.
Some of them are pretty good, but then there are the others. And the continuity is a mess. DIB would have a heart attack.
But overall, the main series is pretty great in a zany 80s indie comic kind of way (at least the issues inthat are still considered canon and are collected in the ultimate collection hardcovers are).
I'm a huge TMNT fan, you talking about just the Mirage comics?
At this point, yes. I read the first issue of the new, IDW series (free on comixology) and it looks interesting too, but thus far, I'm really only reading the old Mirage stuff.
I think I gave them a try a while ago after hearing that they were nothing like the old cartoon and didn't get very far with them.
The IDW stuff is incredible, but where are you in Mirage? I don't want to ask something and risk spoiling you.
There was also a comic published by Archie comics that was very similar to the show. In fact, it originally was just a comic version of the episodes.
I've read up through issue #8 (team up with Cerebus) and a few of the Usagi Yojimbo crossovers. I've also read the whole series of Tales of the TMNT vol 1 b/c I found them first and there were only 7 issues.
I know sort of the basic premise of the next little bit. Shredder comes back to life, they have to leave the city and they go to Northampton (pretty much like the movie). Then comes the "guest writer era" that mostly isn't in official continuity. Then they go back to the city for a bit. Then back to Northampton again, then they go back to the city for the city at war story. Then it goes into volume 2, which I know nothing about. Then there is the out of official continuity Image volume 3, then volume 4 which takes place a long time after volume 2, with some of the details for what happened in between filled in by the Tales of the TMNT vol 2 series.
I really REALLY like the two part return of Shredder story in the Leonardo micro and TMNT #10, as well as #11 where April is keeping a journal on the farm in Northampton. I can see why the movie adapted those issues so closely. They were amazing.
The exile in Northampton stuff was mostly pretty bland, and the Return to New York three-parter was a bit weird. The Shredder Clones...
So I'm up to the guest era, which I think I'll mostly skip for now. I'm really interested in reading the City At War epic. In my opinion, the turtles are much better suited for gritty, urban, ninja stuff than they are for wacky scifi/mystical/timetravel/crossover adventures.
So my foray into the TMNT has led me into Usagi Yojimbo too. I'm reading some of the old comics from the 80s. It's really good. It's fun and simple, yet has an epic feeling to it. Sakai also did a great job of developing interesting characters.
Usagi Yojimbo is the best.
Hey, I'm really into this book now. I figured
I'd start a thread for it. I wonder if one of the mods can transport the posts about TMNT from the "All about comics" thread into this one. Thanks.
I just read Rick Veitch's three-parter "The River". That first issue was one of the creepiest things I've ever read. It's too bad that Eastman considers it non-canon, because it it's quite a good story and it actually introduces Casey & April's romantic relationship.
It's also too bad that legal issues over the rights prevent it from being reprinted.
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