TMNT Adventures (Archie) marathon run begins now...

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Jester

Not sure I'd go that far...unless there are pictures of him in a costume.

And it's a good thing he didn't write that underground porno TMNT comic.

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by wilddiverse

I really hate the term furry. I enjoy many comics about the adventures of humanoid animals, but so many implications are attached to that word that I would never accept that label being applied to me.

Furry is finding humanoid animals to be sexy. If you found Ninjara or Venus to be attractive, for example.

It's basically a worse version of people who find cartoon or anime girls to be "hot."

[wilddiverse]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Furry is finding humanoid animals to be sexy. If you found Ninjara or Venus to be attractive, for example.

It's basically a worse version of people who find cartoon or anime girls to be "hot."

Not all definitions include that sexual connotation, though: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=furry It ranges from a basic enjoyment of animal-centric media to someone who chooses to believe they're a sexy, sexy lemur.

That latter behavior does seem to be what's assumed when the term is invoked. Arguably, that is too broad a label.

[Weapons@theready]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Furry is finding humanoid animals to be sexy. If you found Ninjara or Venus to be attractive,."

I have a problem with the label furry being used if you find Venus attractive because of the lack of fur

[Powder]

So then you're a scaly.

[CyberCubed]

Any female talking animal with breasts is designed for furries. There is a reason talking animals aimed at kids, like Minnie Mouse or Smurfette do not have breasts.

[wilddiverse]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Any female talking animal with breasts is designed for furries. There is a reason talking animals aimed at kids, like Minnie Mouse or Smurfette do not have breasts.

Your logic is specious as ever-- going by some definitions of furry in the link provided above, being a fan of Looney Tunes and Disney cartoons would put someone in the category of 'furry'. Being a fan of Splinter would as well.

[Venom]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Murphy is a furry. Hence later on with Ninjara.

How the hell did you come to that conclusion?!

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by Venom

How the hell did you come to that conclusion?!

Did you see the way Raph and Ninjara kissed in their last issue together? Or what about the Ninjara pin up pages?

[Venom]

Yeah but jeez, that shouldn't imply that Murph is a furry; to me it was simply illustrating Raph and Ninjara sharing a moment of love. The pin up pages, again, are just illistrations of the character.

So what if she has breasts, she's a mammal. Having two is obviously a more familiar form to having her being drawn with however many teats foxes have.

[CyberCubed]

Ninjara was always fully clothed, so she could have been flat-chested and it would make no difference. And unless I'm remembering wrong, there were some Ninjara pin-up's or even poses in the actual comic where she was flaunting her chest.

I don't know if it was maybe Allen's decision to do that or Murphy, but I noticed it.

We should have gotten April fanservice instead. As many have said, the Archie version of April had a great design.

[wilddiverse]

I fail to see how your fixation on Ninjara's breasts makes Murphy a furry...

[Powder]

Originally Posted by wilddiverse

I fail to see how your fixation on Ninjara's breasts makes Murphy a furry...

Isn't there a term for someone who reflects their own views in the accusations of others?

...Cyberfurry.

[Venom]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

the Archie version of April had a great design.

To focus on something positive, I agree with you here.

[CyberCubed]

Wasn't the original idea behind Ninjara's creation in the first place was to have a female mutant on the main cast?

[BentonGrey]

I've enjoyed this read through of yours Andrew. I'm looking forward to you getting up to the Future Shark trilogy.

[Andrew NDB]

TMNTA #20 *** -- Though it kind of ran concurrently with the Mighty Mutanimals mini, this issue shows us what happened to the TMNT other than Raphael after they all got separated after that rooftop debacle. It's also the big Warrior Dragon origin. I actually remember reading virtually the same origin in the "TMNT Magazine"... couldn't have been any later than issue #1, or #2, or #3... anyway, it was remarkably identical to this one but had different art. I'd actually like to track it down again to compare the two. So Chu Hsi, a firefighter, goes into a burning building to save a baby and, due to the benefit (if it can be called that) of a bottle of Dragon Spirit™ morphs into an 8 story-tall humanoid dragon. That part I'm pretty well on board with and am perfectly willing to swallow... the next part, not so much. You see, what the issue does for its climax is give us basically a big Giant Monster vs. Giant Monster finish, which I'm all about, however the opposing "monster" comes in the form of an equally 8 story-tall being... a gigantic robotic Foot Soldier. Yeah, hold the phone -- a gigantic robotic Foot Soldier. To make matters worse, it emerges from the front of a building which opens up like two big double-doors. It huffs and puffs, and throws around a firetruck for some reason before being engaged by Chu Hsi/the Warrior Dragon who slaps the sh*t out of him for good measure then impales him on the Statue of Liberty. Now that part was actually pretty cool. So a neat issue, and a neat intro to Chu Hsi/the Warrior Dragon who would go on to become an important part of Adventures... but I guess my thing is, that giant robotic Foot Soldier. I know I'm not supposed to be dwelling on things like this in a story like this, but even as a kid this bothered me. When I put the issue down it makes me ask questions like, "Can you imagine the resources, money, and manpower Saki would have had to aggregate to build this enormous Foot Soldier? This is a guy that could barely keep the Technodrome running, or help Krang with his body," or "How was this able to be built in secret?" or "What was the endgame for this giant Foot robot supposed to be? When it's time to declare war on New York for some inexplicable reason, march it out to start swinging on buildings? Why not build a bomb, rig a block with explosives, or... you know... something sensible," or "Why dress it up like a Foot Soldier?" and so on, so forth. But not a bad issue, a fun one.

[Andrew NDB]

TMNTA #21 **1/2 -- The Vid Vicious issue. Somehow without having read the issue in about 20 years a lot of the visuals and story still stuck in my mind, so I guess that would make it a pretty memorable one. Reading it now, though, it's hard to ignore the big environmental flag that gets waved early and often in the issue. Long story short, a disgruntled environmentalist gets smacked with a falling satellite and turns into a super-powered eco-terrorist with a TV for a torso. Still with me? April gets kidnapped and gets a world exclusive interview with the guy, who wants to disrupt "all the world's communication systems" and "taking all the nuclear waste within my body and releasing it within the world's oil fields, irradiating them... contaminating them so badly that oil production would have to cease." Not a bad plan, actually... I think I'd be more interested in reading that story. "I'm mad as heck and I'm not going to take it anymore!" becomes like his anthem throughout the story. At one point, Vicious escapes into the TV dimension (I guess?) and Donatello follows him there, becoming marooned in it with him as Shredder arrives and, with his Foot distracting the Turtles, manages to copy Donatello and Vid Vicious from the computer to a single 3.5" floppy disc, which he escapes with. That not one but two lifeforms, with memories, complex physiologies, and all of that can be coded to what amounts to a little bit more than a megabyte (hell, I'm pretty sure just typing out a whole DNA strand's code in a notepad document would amount to a file larger than that)... it's not even worth stopping to argue the plausibility of. But it did remind me of this Funny Or Die skit:
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/c143f7d241/cop-puter

TMNTA #22 *** --Kind of a clever, enjoyable little issue. Even the cover is endearing, in a cutsey kind of way (Shredder standing on the roof of a building named "Acme Traps" with Splinter handing suspended next to him within a giant mousetrap, the Turtles looking up in shock). The gist of it: when Shredder pops the disc into his computer and Sid and Donatello pop out of it, Sid escapes and Don is taken hostage and suspended from high in the Acme Traps building. The Turtles must each choose a door to move forward with the room, each one leading down a go-nowhere maze. Splinter takes a fourth path, which leads to a one-on-one confrontation with Shredder, whom he seems to get the drop on at first... before the cover image comes true and Splinter gets suspended from the giant trap on the rooftop sign. With things pretty hairy now and the Turtles out of options, who shows up but... Raphael, fresh from the Might Mutanimals mini. Actually a pretty neat, Han Solo-arriving-at-the-Deathstar sort of moment, I remember enjoying it quite a bit as a kid.

[DrSpengler]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

TMNTA #22 *** --Kind of a clever, enjoyable little issue. Even the cover is endearing, in a cutsey kind of way (Shredder standing on the roof of a building named "Acme Traps" with Splinter handing suspended next to him within a giant mousetrap, the Turtles looking up in shock). The gist of it: when Shredder pops the disc into his computer and Sid and Donatello pop out of it, Sid escapes and Don is taken hostage and suspended from high in the Acme Traps building. The Turtles must each choose a door to move forward with the room, each one leading down a go-nowhere maze. Splinter takes a fourth path, which leads to a one-on-one confrontation with Shredder, whom he seems to get the drop on at first... before the cover image comes true and Splinter gets suspended from the giant trap on the rooftop sign. With things pretty hairy now and the Turtles out of options, who shows up but... Raphael, fresh from the Might Mutanimals mini. Actually a pretty neat, Han Solo-arriving-at-the-Deathstar sort of moment, I remember enjoying it quite a bit as a kid.

Personally, the only worthwhile thing about the issue was the Gene Colan art. I dunno how or why they got such a celebrated artist for one random, unceremonious issue (likely, Colan just needed the dough), but it really did look fantastic.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by DrSpengler

Personally, the only worthwhile thing about the issue was the Gene Colan art. I dunno how or why they got such a celebrated artist for one random, unceremonious issue (likely, Colan just needed the dough), but it really did look fantastic.

Yeah, I actually didn't mind the fill-in at all in this issue. It does seem like Gene was using the Playmates figures as models to draw the TMNT in every panel, though, but whatever.