Wow, first Marvel sells out to Disney, then DC forms DC ENTERTAINMENT, now
this. What's next?!
For those of you who don't know, The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, possibly the last successful independent property, has been sold to Nickelodeon (which, in turn, is owned by Viacom).
It comes as a shock to fans, yet, Peter Laird, co-creator of the Turtles contends that
"...Not only has the idea, the concept of a sale of the TMNT been percolating in my brain for at least the last decade, the actual work on this deal with Viacom has been going on for many months. It was a complicated, grueling negotiation with thousands of details to consider." Sold for $60 million USD, some people believe that Mr. Laird got ripped off. But, as he states,
"...Please keep in mind that I had consulted with smart advisers who know about this kind of stuff, who had studied and researched how to evaluate the dollar value of a property like TMNT in real-world terms..."So, what now?
Well, pretty much, everything is up in the air.
As for the movie, reports were that the new movie (which was reported to be a live-action movie) was supposed to come out in 2011 with screenwriter John Fusco to create the script and work with with producers Scott Mednick and Galen Walker. Since the sale to Nickelodeon, that has been taken off the table, and replaced with, (according to the press release from Nickelodeon) "
...in partnership with Viacom's Paramount Pictures, a new release of a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles feature film is also planned for 2012."
As for the comics, who knows how that will work itself out? Although, according to a response given by Jim Lawson on his
blog,
"...Peter maintains the right to publish up to 18 TMNT comics per year that can be sold via the direct market and/or web site."While that is some encouraging news, what does it mean? Well, it means the Turtles will be in comics for a little while longer, so stories can be finished up. Other than that, who knows?
As for the cartoon? Well, again, according to the press release,
"Nickelodeon also announced plans to develop a new CG-animated television series based on the popular superhero franchise, anticipated to premiere in 2012."Here are my two cents (and no disrespect is intended if it comes off as a scathing rant, it's just my opinions based of what I've read. I'm not in MA, nor am I involved with knowing any of the day-to-day activities) :
While, on the one hand, I can respect the fact that Peter Laird wanted to sell the Turtles property, because, as he puts it,
"...why did I sell the TMNT? There are a number of reasons, but first and foremost is that I have been doing this TMNT thing for twenty-five years, sixteen of them in partnership with TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman and the last nine as sole owner of the property. That is a long time. It is almost half my life (I'm 55). I never expected to be working on the same thing for this long. And it has worn me down. I am no longer that guy who carries his sketchbook around with him and draws in it every chance he gets. That guy did all of the pre-TMNT artwork you have been seeing on this blog in many of my "Blast from the Past" posts."I get it. He's burnt out. I totally understand that point. Do I agree with his need to sell the property because he is burnt out and want's nothing more to do with the "bigger issues" that he has to deal with? Not exactly.
Why? Just for the fact that:
A) He reserved the right to publish up to 18
comics per year. Now, from one side, I can see the need to get that to finish up Tales of the TMNT Vol. 2.
BUT, to have it that you can
ALSO finish up TMNT Vol. 4, "whenever you want" is somewhat irksome. You wanted to walk away, but yet, you don't want to
totally walk away?
It will be interesting to see what the future holds.
My hope is that (at least on the comics side) Mirage Publishing figures out a way to get all of the projected books that they had in release out, and to the fans. I think it would be hard, but not entirely difficult.
For example: If, as Dan Berger has stated, that,
"...Tales of the TMNT Vol. 2 will continue through to and conclude with issue #70, scheduled for next year.", and it's at Issue # 62 or 63, then that leaves only 7 to 8 more issues left.
He goes on to say that,
"TMNT Vol. 4 will continue at a pace that only Peter Laird will be able to decide."With that statement, it could be weeks, months, or years before Peter Laird decides he wants to go back to the TMNT world (and, arguably, understandable). With that though, you have a possible ten slot comic book that can be produced.
My plan (if I were at all involved), would be to pull the Mirage Universe TPB (which has been done) and break it into monthly books. Now, (as I have seen) there isn't a page count that these can be put into, but, as Dan Berger puts it,
"...they are (likely) allowed to do reprints, so long as they are between 32-48 pages, which rules out the publication of any trade paperbacks."If you keep each monthly book in those page requirements, then boom! Done! And if you want to reprint at some point, Done!
Now, about "Forever War". This book, should, no, NEEDS to see the light of day. It was originally scraped for whatever reason, but yet, back on Tuesday, July 17, 2007, Stephen Murphy announced, via his blog, that,
"Just came out of a meeting with Peter Laird and CEO Gary and am very pleased to report that the long-delayed The Forever War project has been given a green light and will see print as one of the "special event projects" to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the TMNT in May 2009...". This was from
2007.
2007!!!!Again, with Peter Laird's current "I don't know when" schedule for TMNT Vol. 4, this, again, is doable. I'm not sure if I am imagining this, or not, but I
thought I read that the 18 comics per year can be black & white only (I need clarification on that). I'm not really sure if that makes a difference to anyone or not, but if you have to print it in black and white to get it out, then DO IT! Chris Allan's art work is strong enough to stand up in black and white.
So, if you have Tales pumping along at a book a month (December is when # 63 is supposed to be out) then 64-70 would be 7 books in 7 months (for 2010), put in the Forever War book in there are as well (4-5 issues I think is what it was), that's 11-12 books out in 7 months, and put out at least 5-6 issues of Mirage Universe out( I'm not sure who many books that would break out into),then you have 17-18 books in a year. Perfect for interlacing a Peter Laird Vol 4. book here and there, wouldn't you agree?
Now, as for that special "cartoon". I saw the clip of it that was posted on
the Ninja Pizza Blog, and I gotta admit, it looked pretty cool. I'm not sure why that wasn't released (possibly due to the sale), but I have to wonder why that wasn't brought up into any discussions (again, I wasn't there for any negotiations, so I don't know). All that time, and effort, possibly wasted. The fact that it was purported to be for the 25th anniversary makes it even more irksome why that has never, nor possibly will, ever be released. I don't have the slightest idea on how to get that out.
The other thing that I wonder is:
Why was there a 25th Anniversary "shellebration" at all? Was it for the fans, or just to point out that "
Hey, the TMNT are 25 years old" to some prosepective buyer? If it was, then why was it (again, in my opinion) done so poorly? Was it because the initial proceedings for selling the TMNT property were already beiginning? I find it hard to believe that if you weren't going through the motions, that the TMNT 25th celebration would have been handled better.
One case in point: The collected TMNT book that was put out had a multitude of errors (see
this post for specifics on the errors); that, when asked about, the response was,
"It was a combination of things, including laziness and the sense that -- as a reprint -- there wouldn't really be any errors for me to find. Obviously, I was wrong." And, as Roseangelo (her blog is
here) puts it,
"...It's not unusual for me to see something from the TMNT25 team, anchored by some folks at Peppercom, and be disappointed by its pointlessness and consistant lack of professionalism. So far we've seen pajama TMNT "costumes" at Comic-Con last year (and they were sooooo proud of these), a pointless Twitter account that gives weather updates more than anything else, a crappy Web site still full of inaccurate information, an April with a Kill Bill jumpsuit, and now the e-mail that arrived today." (her total post about this is
here)
In closing, I hope that the fans are treated to a little bit more than what they have gotten. Yes, the franchise was revived in 2003 with a great cartoon, and again in 2007 with the movie, but other than, that? Not much. Playmates has put out toys that have had some success, and others that has been ridiculed for it's ridiculousness.
The 25th Anniversary? A collected book, (with mistakes made), another collected book (from Kevin Eastman), a screening of the ORIGINAL Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie, a bus made up to look like the Turtle van, some really bad marketing campaigns, and unfulfilled promises of books and movies that are "supposedly" (read: probably not) coming out. Whahoo!(dripping with sarcasm)
Am I totally wrong in my thinking, and way off base with my thoughts?Some comments were taken off of the following blogs:
http://ninja-pizza.blogspot.com
http://boxburning.blogspot.com
http://plairdblog.blogspot.com
http://the-5th-turtle.blogspot.com
