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Home , Kevin Eastman, Mirage Studios, Peter Laird, Turtle (comics)

6 - MANCHESTER HERALD, Tuesday, May 15, 1984 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' fills gap for comic fans ~J

DOVER, N.H. - "My name is Leonardo. weaned on , when he was fighting We made a wrong turn somewhere. Now Brainiac and , and for those who we're caught, our backs to the wall in this remember when The of trash strewn alley. Barring the way out are Monograph America had the and J 'onn J'onzz 15 members of the Purple Dragons, the instead of Halo and Black Lightning, have toughest street gang on the east side. The Andy Oabilis today become self-parodies. Even D.C. '. only way they'lIl~t us out of here is if we're , publishers of Superman, have DEAD! " United Press given up plot for fake dazzle and pop But the Purple Dragons - and kung fu International graphics. flicks, samurai movies, the karate craze Laird says they wanted to inject some " and all those comic books featuring self-effacing humor and retain high quality , adolescents exposed to strange rays art and story line in comjcs, which have turning them into superhero freaks - are come from a dime each to $1 .50, which used no match for the - "TEENAGE MUTANT intelligence by a mysterious radioactive to be more than enough to buy Playboy. NINJA TURTLES." ooze," and trained by a super-rat who They chose teens and martial arts Free lance illustrator learned karate and tlie way of the sword because "lately there's been a kind of has teamed with , 30, who has from a Japanese master. Their mission: resurgence in the ninja, and the idea of worked for newspapers like the Daily stalk the assassin of their master's master turtles as ninjas appeared to our sense of Hampshire Gazette in , and through streets fi lied with Purple Dragons bizarre humor. They are the last creatures magazines and "fanzin es," for the parody and deadly enemies. you'd expect to be acrobatic and deadly," they hope will sell. How can you not like characters who are he laughs. "We just wanted to do some kind of comic teenage mutant ninja turtles with names "Ninja Turtles" is "more of a parody of .' book and Kevin had this idea for a ninja like Leonardo, Michaelangelo, Raphael what's happening in comics, there's a character who was a turtle and he drew a and Donatello, who spout dialogue like "we plethora of teenage mutant superheroes: sketch and I thought it was really clever are turtles, not dogs without honor." There's some really bad stuff out there," he ' and cute," Laird says. . Laird and Eastman have taken to direct says. ' , The two have formed and marketing through the mails and national The first nlll of 3,000 copies is sizeable for . "Turtles," as they call it, is their first advertisers after finanCing the an entrepreneurial start in a tricky comic book. comic on a tax refund and an uncle who was business, and their word-of-mouth-type They have advertised the 40-page black­ easily persuaded. distribution is riskier. '" and-white story that follows the hilariously Laird says the couple chose their subject Laird says they are confident the demand , satiric adventures of four teenage turtles because both were comic book fans for quality comic books and the opening of who have been trained in the secret martial dismayed by the trend away from the more more than 2,000 comic book stores will arts of the ninja, the shadow warriors of intellectual plots of the better "Superman" make the work financially successful "TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES" feudal J apan. stories, and because they had also studied enough for a sequel. . . . from two men in New Hampshire But the characters are also mutants, martial arts . How about: "REVENGE OF THE altered, as they say, "in form and Comic books for the serious student TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES?'"