"SO LONG, NO THANKS FOR ALL THE FISH" AFTERWORD
I thought I'd take the time in this thread, now that this first episode is done, to share a little story about it's development.
The idea to do something based off the 1987 TMNT cartoon first occured to me in 2008, I had just downloaded the original series and was marathoning it, and in addition to that I had seen the buzz generated by Tony Day's "Turtle Turncoat", gradually the general urge to continue the cartoon's story came over me, as there was clearly a desire to respresent it from others. I knew the 25th anniversary of the franchise was coming up in 2009 so I figured (way before Turtles Forever was announced), "hey, let's put together a four issue comic book miniseries that takes the Turtles on an epic journey that incorporates a lot of the old cartoon set-peices we all enjoyed as kids"
The original story was to be called "
Turteloids Without Frontiers", and it was a vastly different adventure than the one we've come around to. Here's what was originally intended
* As you can tell from the title, the Turteloids, particulary Kerma, were going to be the major fixtures of it, and Kerma was the one who summoned the Turtles to Texas to begin with following the kidnapping of McGruder, who Kerma had been taken in by.
*Theo Christ, a regular shady land developer in the final product, was originally going to be a Turteloid posing as a human mafia kingpin operating in New York, and was the driving force behind a crime wave the Turtles were doing their best to keep under control.
*Michelangelo would have stayed in New York with April to keep tabs on Theo's operations while the remaining three went to Texas in response to Kerma's message. Michelangelo and April were to find out the truth about Theo's men in a battle at a warehouse.
*Krang's interweathoral nexus, used in the published script to develop the sinkhole and prepare it to house his otherworldly fish, was to have much greater power than displayed and been merly tested out on texas, Krang's grander plan was to use it to raise the level of the oceons surrounding New York and submerge the city
*In addition to using special strength-enhancing harnasses that enabled regular horses to pull The Technodrome across Texas, The Technodrome would have ultimately rode into New York on a whale near the story's conclusion
*Krang's scheme was to use a mystical "flesh blending" crystal the Turteloids had stumbled upon while mining off-world to merge all manner of species into impenetrable living sheilds, and he already had transformed much of Shell-Ri-La's population into such sheids, with the helpelss aliens covering most of the interior and exterior walls of The Technodrome. Donatello would have freed them at the story's conclusion and destroyed the crystal, although he nearly dies in the attempt.
*You would have finally seen Irma with her hair down and glasses off
There are a few other plot points that was intended for the story, but I have chosen to omit them. Why? Because they will be showing up over the course of these ten episodes. One shouldnt put any idea you're keen on using to waste.
After some wrangling, I convinced Technodrome member and talented illustrator Raven to be my artist and I set to work on four scripts. I got up to two issues and Raven sent me some beutiful pics that he really should share with you guys sometime, I beleive one such picture, that of The Technodrome being pulled along the plains of Texas by horses, was posted up on the forum. The guy also drew up one of the best looking Aprils I've ever seen.
Real life complications and other commitments soon meant that Raven's services could no longer be afforded, and I was left without an artist again...at the time, I felt like the comic book project was perhaps a little too taxing, so I opted to change the format to that of a novella. Eventually, I got another artist, Oldmanwinters. He seemed up to the challenge and we ran with the novella concept, he came up with some wonderful pictures, some of which he later put up on Deviantart, which made me feel particulary proud for inspiring such work from him.
Alas, at this point I became very seriously ill. A depression I had not recovered from since 2007 began to play havoc on my mind, and I suffered a great deal of creative burnout. In a state of madness and a complete lack of real confidence I had deleted most of my existing fanfics from FF.net (incuding a fairly popular Jackie Chan Adventures story called "Fly Me To The Moon" which I was quite fond of), and before long my mental state was in dire need of careful observation and proper treatment. I was hospitalized in the summer of 2010 and stayed under psychiatric care for several weeks, I ultimately recovered from the worst traits of my spill n a span of about a month, but my love of writing had been temporarily shattered and I felt like I could never hope to recover the story I had spent the last few years honing and perfecting. Worse, a computer crash wiped out the entire manuscript for TWF, leaving me with only scrapings of the original plot.
In time, and with some encouragement from Winters and the generally consistent positive vibe of the forum, I decided to take a definitive crack at the whip and get these scripts written up. Out went the Turteloid plot and many other elements, although certain elements from the original story (the McGruders, a minimal use of the interweathroal nexus, and preacher Casey Jones kicking ass) were maintained. The result is a shorter, more compact, but I feel overwhelmingly satisfiable yarn that I'm pleased to say has entertained a good few people on the 'drome and even got a divisive view or two as well.
I'd like to thank everyone who's been supporting my writing of late, Bubblyshell and Blossombooks for their kind words, as well as Raven and Oldmanwinters for taking time out of their agendas to help move things in a forward direction. It took a long time to get here, but the road paved to hell with good intentions is looking a lot more heavnly from my end of things
Thankyou all.