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Old 07-09-2014, 10:03 AM   #1
neatoman
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Feelings on the IDW reprints

So my feelings are a bit mixed.

On one hand it's great that these comics are finally easy to get especially when someone like I found it to be impossible seeing how I don't live in the US. Imports from larger publishers like IDW are always easier to find in Sweden than ones from small publishers like Mirage. I'm sure some Swedish publisher have the rights to put TMNT comics on the domestic market but they don't seem to be willing to any American comics a respectable reprint in trade form unless it's Donald Duck or the Phantom (no joke, the only foreign comics they do seem to like are from the Franco-Belgian or Japanese market).

So while it is nice to finally be able to read these comics without either looking up some decades old issues of the translated Usagi comics in which the Mirage Turtles were the back up stories, looking up the more widely but also decades old Archie translation or just pirating the comics, I do take issue with the coloring.

The fact that nearly everything except the Ultimate Collection is colored, it's the only material they publish in the intended state, just feels wrong. It's like when Lucas refused to release the theatrical cuts of the Star Wars movies, there was nothing horribly wrong the original cuts so don't refuse to release them and you can still have the new versions alongside them without any problem. Now the coloring usually looks good but sometimes it dosen't look right as they seem to have colored on top of the original art without making alterations for the coloring. There's also some occasional weirdness, as an example there's a page in the third volume of Tales in which there's an uncolored square covering the tip of Raph's sai but these are few.

And then there's the Archie reprints... If there's a comic book series that could stand a recoloring, it's the Archie series... There was nothing wrong with the original black/white Mirage books and I stand by that they should be printed in their original form but the original coloring for the Archie series was awful, miscoloring and coloring outside of the lines is a common problem. And what's up with printing scans? It's full of smudges and other errors, couldn't they at least try to correct that in Photoshop or something?

So yeah, It's feels good to finally have these comics but I wish it didn't have to either be too altered in the case of the Mirage books or not altered enough with the Archie series...
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Old 07-09-2014, 10:19 AM   #2
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I don't mind the re-coloring besides when there are errors.

You can always track down the old issues if you want them in black and white.
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Old 07-09-2014, 10:22 AM   #3
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They're far from perfect but I'm definitely of the mind that we are pretty lucky with how IDW is handling turtles content in general.

Tons of reprints but also just as many new (and good) comics.

This is borderline best scenario.
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Old 07-09-2014, 10:37 AM   #4
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Originally Posted by CyberCubed View Post
You can always track down the old issues if you want them in black and white.
But I can't, I explained that. It's too hard when said comics are niether published in my country or even all that easy to find in the country they were published in.
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Old 07-09-2014, 10:41 AM   #5
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Ah, I've got so many things that annoys me, and I could pick on about the TMNT reprints... But even with the mistake, I have to say, I'm really happy to have them in paper format, and collected. There weren't much TMNT comic my country, apart from about 2/3 of the Archie run, so obviously, when I was school-age or at a low paying job and without money I had no other chance, then to 'pirate' them (yeah, pirate, like attacking and murdering people for comics, then selling them at the black market. cuz this and illegally creating a private copy are exactly the same things, and should both totally called as piracy...). So now I have an okay job, I can spend money on the reprints, and I do, and I'm really happy to finally have them on paper, but still, I wish someone at IDW would have monitored them more carefully.
Here are my problems:
- Missing duo-shades. Sure, Mirage might have sent Nick duoshade-less files, and then Nick sent those files to IDW, but anyone who ever read the whole Mirage run, should have cought this error. They should have rescanned the original issues, and clean it with Photoshop. That might not have a perfect result, but still a ton better, then just bare inked lines.
- No Fugitoid #1 in Ultimate Collection #1. The UC books contain the canonical v1 stories that PL/KE had direct input in plus the microseries, right? So why no Fugitoid? That's his first appearence, it's done by PL, and it's totally canon, and important part of the TMNT universe. Tho they can still release it in the Classics TPB line of books.
- I wish I could have the whole thing in original form too. I'm buying the colored works/classics/tales/datotherbookwithsoulswinter too, but I wish I could pick up remaining v1/tales v1/etc. in B&W too.
- Okay, my major problem with the colored books are the coloring mistakes, a lot of them. I think I already posted about this before, so I won't explain everything again, but it's about foot ninjas and Shredder having differen color in every single book, Renet having orange (!) skin color (they might have just rename her to Starfire), Complete Carnage changing skin color from grey to gold, then to blue, etc.
- Sometimes the coloring is really lazy/bad/weak, like when they forget to color Radical's hair, etc.

I'm actually happy bout Archie being untouched (tho I didn't started to collect them yet), but seeing how awesome the coloring was by Heather Breckel in 30th Anniversary, I wouldn't mind the recoloring, if it was done by her, and not by some XY graphics studio who has no clue what they're doing.

If IDW really want to save money on the colorist for Mirage reprint, they should outsource the job to someone from a country with cheap living and low wages. And someone should really look trough the pages and search for mistakes.
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Old 07-09-2014, 10:58 AM   #6
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As far as the printing scans goes, IDW is unfortunately at the mercy of using whatever files Mirage sends them or still has in the archives. So if there is an issue with the quality being lackluster, that because that was all Mirage could provide them with.

I love the Mirage centric reprints that IDW has done, I love the Ultimate Collections especially. I do wish that the other stuff was reprinted in larger collections and packaging. Very rarely do I pick up 2 or 3 volumes of the Tales or Classics TPB collections, which together run around $55-$60, and feel that those multiple editions are anywhere close to the same value as what you get for one Ultimate Collection at $50. But the lucky thing here in the US is that most of the non-Laird & Eastman issues from Volume 1 of Mirage are pretty readily available and cheap, so I have only been picking up the Classics volumes that have issues I'm missing and kind find cheap originals. I know that doesn't help you in Europe, though, so I see your point.

As for the Archie reprints, I have to disagree with you about the coloring. I absolutely love the original coloring in the Archie Adventure series, it has the perfect feel for the time it was being printed. I don't know about you, but I have a very high nostalgia for the late 80's and early 90's especially when it comes to that era of the turtles, and so I love that they kept the original coloring it really takes me back to my youth and the coloring really conveys that 90's vibe. I love it. What I don't love is the price point for 4 issues. Honestly, from what issues they've collected so far, you would be better off going to the Mirage website and buying the individual Archie Adventures issues for $3 a pop instead. Again, sorry but that doesn't help you over in Sweden.

IDW is really in a tough spot here, there is so much Turtle material that has never been reprinted, and what has, didn't see large print runs and these collected editions weren't readily available at a reasonable price before IDW got the license. So once IDW took over, you have thousands of hungry fans, salivating over the possibility of finally getting some reprints of the vast catalog of turtle comics out there. And so they are constantly getting flooded with "when are you going to collect this? when are you going to collect that?" questions. I'm just as guilty as anyone. And so IDW has to do their best to meet demand, and try to reprint as much as they can as possible, and that's a lot to cover when there is 30 years worth of material out there. They can't make everyone happy, but they are trying to get as much out there as they can in a reasonable time frame.

Once they get some of that stuff out there, and start reprinting some of the stuff from eras they haven't tapped yet, I would expect them to come back with more complete, larger collections, at a cheaper price point, that will meet a lot of your and many others' (including my own) issues with some of the collected editions thus far. The Transformers comics went through a similar program, and now they've been putting out some downright amazing collections of not only their own IDW series, but also the past Marvel and Marvel UK Transformers stuff.

So I guess all I can say is try to enjoy what we're getting now, I know there are some issues, but I think they will get pretty close to satisfying almost all of our concerns the second time around when they get back to collecting that stuff again in a new format.
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Old 07-09-2014, 11:39 AM   #7
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Originally Posted by Metropoliskid41 View Post
I don't know about you, but I have a very high nostalgia for the late 80's and early 90's especially when it comes to that era of the turtles
I'm a little nostalgic for the things I grew up but not so much that I refuse accept if some (if not most of it) sucks to my adult mind. I might stand watching a couple episodes of the 90's Spider-Man cartoon or Pokémon but I also can't deny that the first is a hyperpaced, ugly mess and that the other is an overly formulaic video-game commercial with unsatisfying conclusions to the story arcs.

As for TMNT, funny story, I did not grow up with TMNT!

I knew about it, I knew of the status quo of the cartoon through a cassette tape adaptation, I had watched two of the movies (most likely the second and third one) and I had read an issue of the Archie series at an older friend's apartment but that's about it, by the time I was old enough to even watch TV the show had most likely ended it's run on Swedish TV. By that time you can most likely guess what I grew up with instead, and just when I became "a little too old for cartoons" the 2003 series began it's Swedish dub.

So no, I seeked out what I could on the internet when I was a teenager and it was the 2003 that got me hooked (I thought the 1987 cartoon was a bit boring and the movie was simply decent but not that great in my opinion at the time).
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Old 07-09-2014, 11:45 AM   #8
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Originally Posted by Metropoliskid41 View Post
As far as the printing scans goes, IDW is unfortunately at the mercy of using whatever files Mirage sends them or still has in the archives. So if there is an issue with the quality being lackluster, that because that was all Mirage could provide them with.
I don't know how Nick or IDW deals with this issues, but if you want to reprint a comic by Marvel (for a different country then US), and they don't have it digitally, they will offer you to scan it for a high price, but If you (=your publisher) don't like it, marvel will still let you scan it by yourself. I don't see why Nick wouldn't let something like that to happen for IDW, but of course I might be wrong, some from IDW could reveal the truth about this...
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Old 07-09-2014, 02:04 PM   #9
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I don't know how Nick or IDW deals with this issues, but if you want to reprint a comic by Marvel (for a different country then US), and they don't have it digitally, they will offer you to scan it for a high price, but If you (=your publisher) don't like it, marvel will still let you scan it by yourself. I don't see why Nick wouldn't let something like that to happen for IDW, but of course I might be wrong, some from IDW could reveal the truth about this...
Tazi, What I was saying about the scans and Mirage is this, for reprinting the material, IDW can only either a) Use the original art files provided to them by Mirage or b) Use scans of the actually published material

So for example when Ultimate Collection volume 4 had issues where the pages were missing the duo tones (so the only art was line art and not the shading, give the book a hollow look like the DC Showcase or Marvel Essential books) that was because Mirage no longer had files containing the Duo Tones, and only had the original line art (pencils and inks) and that was what they sent IDW to reprint. So the end result was an Ultimate Collection that was missing the Duo Tone shading in certain issues that were collected.

For the case of the Archie Adventure series, it appears that they don't have access to the original art work, whether that means permanently, or simply for the time being, and so if they wanted to put out these books that fans were clamoring for, they had to use scans of the actual printed material. Obviously this isn't ideal, especially from an era where printing inconsistencies still ran rampant due to experimenting with different printing processes for making comics. So they could just not have access to high quality, flawless printed copies to scan from. Some printing inconsistencies or smudges are from the printing anilox or plates that the press used, and so the same smudge or mark that messes up a single panel could be present in the exact same location in literally thousands of copies.
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Old 07-09-2014, 02:29 PM   #10
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Tazi, What I was saying about the scans and Mirage is this, for reprinting the material, IDW can only either a) Use the original art files provided to them by Mirage or b) Use scans of the actually published material

So for example when Ultimate Collection volume 4 had issues where the pages were missing the duo tones (so the only art was line art and not the shading, give the book a hollow look like the DC Showcase or Marvel Essential books) that was because Mirage no longer had files containing the Duo Tones, and only had the original line art (pencils and inks) and that was what they sent IDW to reprint. So the end result was an Ultimate Collection that was missing the Duo Tone shading in certain issues that were collected.
Well, what I ment, they could have been scanned the actual printed comics, then with some PS they could turn it into something really good. This is how they release classic Spiderman stories in Hungary, they scan bad quality german/french Spiderman comics, and fix the issues with PS and the results are really good! I could even say that, they're turning **** to gold.
Now the same could have been done with those Mirage issues, scanning it from the printed material. You could even mix it with the original scanned line/ink art.
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Old 07-09-2014, 02:33 PM   #11
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As I mentioned in my first post on the matter, I think their top priority right now is to try to collect and get some of past material out there for fans as quickly as possible, and not spend hours editing and touching up each issue. I would guess these problems will be addressed and correct in subsequent releases, just as they were for the Transformers comics the second time around.
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Old 07-15-2014, 05:35 PM   #12
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I'd like to see them make more obscure TMNT press more readily avaliable. Stuff like the mangas, Las Tortugas Ninjas, the Fleetway-exclusive stories, etc.
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Old 07-15-2014, 07:48 PM   #13
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Fugitoid isn't exactly necessary in a TMNT reprint book. The 2009 TMNT book included it though. Wasn't it completly done by Kevin and Peter too? It was their first comic work together. So was that why 3 issues from Ult. Coll. Book 4 have no duo tones? I couldn't get to my original issues and wondered if this was how it came out? Makes sense.
But my problem with IDW is that their reprints don't look that good of older stuff. We could go all out on how their Marvel GI Joe and Transformers reprints looked. They couldn't get them to look any better then the original issues at all. They've reprinted Transformers again and I don't know if they look any better other than now they've included the missing issues that couldn't be reprinted due to creator/character rights. But what makes no sense is that in the case of Transformers, IDW's reprints look so bad when Titan Books in the UK made TF reprints a few years before IDW and the Titan stuff looks good. Thats what I don't get. Like I mentioned in a thread a few weeks ago I didn't think the "City at War" stuff looked right in the larger size reprint. The words and art look blurry at times and to me was proof the stuff wasn't meant to be in that scale. Although And its all digitally restrored/remastered? I haven't seen an earlier Ultimate Coll. book yet how the Eastman and Laird stuff turned out. TMNT Adventures of course is scanned right off the actual comics but again with the Titan Books comparison, If they had TMNTA they'd probably still do it better.
My other gripe is the IDW reprint strategy. Why can't we get full storylines together? "Return to NY"," City at War" etc. TMNT Adventures why does it have to be every 4-5 issues (or slightly more) only? Why couldn't "Tales of the TMNT" Vol. 1 series have been in one book? Why can't we have "TMNT" Vol. 2, "TMNT" Vol. 3 be in one book (the latter would be somewhat larger, like Next Men)? They're strategy stinks and I really honestly have been put off by this way of reprinting the runs. I really don't need a gazillion trades of a comics run that are so short. But to condense them into small releases? Makes no sense. Lets make more and sell more as possible. I mean TMNTA gonna end up being quite a few trades (with the unsatisfying reprint quailty too). Those comics that are colored by IDW with poor care where things ARE actually colored wrong constantly. Theres no excuse for this. I really wished Mirage was doing the reprints or at least was able to consult. Thats a pipe dream though.
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Old 07-16-2014, 03:58 PM   #14
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So was that why 3 issues from Ult. Coll. Book 4 have no duo tones? I couldn't get to my original issues and wondered if this was how it came out? Makes sense.
Mirage apparently didn't have/didn't provide toned masters for those issues. It's possible they don't exist anymore, which means the alternative would be scanning and blowing up an issue. Pick your poison.

The IDW reprints aren't perfect, but I'm hugely glad to have them out so I can actually point new fans to the content (and read it myself without hauling out single issues). The colorization varies; sometimes it looks really good, other times not. It is what it is.

My one wish is that we'd start to see more themed volumes, or seminal storylines collected outside of the hardcovers for casual readers to try. $35 oversized hardcovers and anthology collections running up to Volumes 9+ can be daunting for the non-initiated. I'd love to say, "Hey! Check this out. It has all the future Turtles stories." Or, "Hey, grab that 'City at War' paperback and give it a read."

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Old 07-16-2014, 04:01 PM   #15
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I'm amazed at how much IDW collected already. They finished all of Volume 1 except for 4 issues, we're halfway into Volume 2, and all of the original Tales is collected already, meaning the second edition of Tales is up to #16 already.

By next year we should have Image collected for the first time. I'm quite excited to see the Image issues reprinted especially in color.
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