April 2023 Solicitations

[hypered1]

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES #139

Spoiler:

Sophie Campbell (w) • Fero Peniche (a/ca)

Enter the Endgame! Ch'rell's forces descend upon a Mutant Town already ravaged by nonstop riots in the wake of the Imposter Turtles' attacks. Now, skirting Donatello's best defenses, the Utroms are closing in on Seri, the hunted Triceraton Regenta. Meanwhile, the Rat King's quest for chaos has culminated at the reunited Turtles' doorstep, and they have no choice but to take the fight to him! Can Donnie rally Mikey, Leo, and Raph and their allies to quell the Utrom invasion? The Armageddon Game enters its end stage!

FC • 32 pages • $3.99 • Available April 19th, 2023


TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES ARMAGEDDON GAME 7 (of 8 )

Spoiler:

Tom Waltz (w) • Vincenzo Federici (a/ca)

Chaos Reigns! Despite the best efforts of Oroku Saki and the tenacious Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, New York City teeters on the edge of anarchy. The Rat King and his trio of terror have outmaneuvered the heroes at every stage, and now his vision of a world in ruin is well within reach! Soon, his siblings, the Pantheon, will have no choice but to play his game! Can the TMNT find a way to stop the apocalypse, or will disorder rule the day? It all comes to a head in the penultimate issue of The Armageddon Game!

FC • 36 pages • $4.99 • Available April 12th, 2023.


TMNT ARMAGEDDON GAME ALLIANCE #6 (of 6)

Spoiler:

Paul Allor (w) • Pablo Verdugo (a) • Roi Mercado (ca)

Spurred by the looming threat of the Rat King's Armageddon Game, Oroku Karai set out to fortify the Foot Clan by building an alliance she could trust. But now, as the chaos god and his trio of terror tighten their grasp on New York City, Karai must choose: align with an old enemy or watch the world fall to the ultimate evil. Battle lines are drawn here in the epic final issue of The Alliance as The Armageddon Game nears its end!

FC • 32 pages • $3.99 • Available April 5th, 2023.


TMNT USAGI YOJIMBO WHEREWHEN #1

Spoiler:

Stan Sakai (w/a/ca)

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pursue the evil cyborg genius Dr. WhereWhen through a time portal...and emerge in feudal Japan! There, they encounter Usagi Yojimbo, 20 years into the samurai's future but decades after the arrival of Dr. WhereWhen... who has already carved himself a fiefdom using mechanized clockwork samurai robots... with the intention of conquering both the past and current timelines!

FC • 36 pages • $4.99 • Available April 12th, 2023.


TMNT THE LAST RONIN - THE LOST YEARS #3 (of 5)

Spoiler:

Kevin Eastman (w) • Ben Bishop (a) • Kevin Eastman (ca)

THE TALE OF THE LAST RONIN'S FIRST MISSION CONTINUES! In the past: Michelangelo's quest for vengeance takes him further westward and the fighting forms he's mastered thus far will prove invaluable as he faces yet another adversary. Nothing will stand in the way of his quest to return to New York City and avenge his family for the fates suffered at the hands of the Foot Clan except maybe the chiding voices of his dead brothers. Meanwhile, in the present (a.k.a. our future!), Casey Marie Jones does her best to rear the next generation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as both their master and surrogate mother and she's finding she's not sure which undertaking is more difficult! Writers Kevin Eastman and Tom Waltz, alongside artists Ben Bishop (TMNT: The Last Ronin) and S.L. Gallant (G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero), continue this tantalizing tale of the beginnings of the Last Ronin.

FC • 36 pages • $4.99 • Available April 19th, 2023.


TMNT THE LAST RONIN - THE LOST YEARS DIRECTOR'S CUT #1

Spoiler:

[img][/img]

Kevin Eastman (w) • Ben Bishop, SL Gallant (a) • Kevin Eastman (ca)

Revisit the first chapter of the Last Ronin's storied journey in this epic, in-depth director's cut edition of TMNT: The Last Ronin's Lost Years #1. Enjoy all the original content newly paired with never-before-seen artifacts from the desks of Kevin Eastman, SL Gallant, and Ben Bishop.
This title will be standard trim size, not the oversized format of The Last Ronin series.

FC • 52 pages • $5.99 • Available April 26th, 2023.


MMPR TMNT II #5 (of 5)

Spoiler:

Ryan Parrott (w) • Dan Mora (a/ca)

Forbidden alliances collide as radically enhanced, mind blowing Zord combinations battle it out!
Reunited friends face Krang as a true force to be reckoned with-but will it be enough to send him back to Dimension X?

FC • 36 pages • $4.99 • Available April 26th, 2023.


TMNT BEST OF TMNT COLLECTION TP VOL 03

Spoiler:

Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird, Tom Waltz, Brian Lynch, Sophie Campbell (w) • Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird (a) • James Biggie (ca)

This collection digs into the dark underbelly of the Turtles' New York, focusing on Leatherhead, Baxter Stockman, Rat King, and of course, the sinister Shredder! Gathering stories from their almost 40-year history, see the characters develop from their early roots in the original comics to their monstrous present day incarnations. Delve into issues from the original Mirage series, TMNT Adventures, and Tales of the TMNT to IDW's current ongoing universe. Uncover crucial tales of tragic occasional TMNT ally Leatherhead, conniving scientist Baxter Stockman, the otherworldly Rat King, and the Turtles' archnemesis, Shredder!

FC • 376 pages • $29.99 • Available April 26th, 2023.

[ChosenOne]

That #139 cover is gorgeous, but I'm not sure I like what it seems to entail...

Stoked to see Bebop and Rocksteady back in the spotlight!

And just a heads up, hypered1, there are solicitations for #140, AG #8 and more floating around out there since last week. No cover images yet, though.

[hypered1]

Originally Posted by ChosenOne

That #139 cover is gorgeous, but I'm not sure I like what it seems to entail...

Stoked to see Bebop and Rocksteady back in the spotlight!

And just a heads up, hypered1, there are solicitations for #140, AG #8 and more floating around out there since last week. No cover images yet, though.

Those issues will be in the May thread in a few weeks time.

[ChosenOne]

Originally Posted by hypered1

Those issues will be in the May thread in a few weeks time.

Figured as much, just wanted to point it out in case you didn't already know.

[CyberCubed]

Usagi issue is 20 years into his future? Man we're getting an endgame for Usagi, that's bigger news than anything here.

The main stuff is kinda a mixed bag so far, I really hope this arc has a big conclusion because if it's just all the villains walking away again like nothing happened it'll make the entire arc feel pointless. I don't know if I can handle Rat King just laughing to himself saying, "And the games will continue" again for another 50 issues.

[neatoman]

The Alliance is getting a sixth issue out of a total of five? How does that work?

[hypered1]

Originally Posted by neatoman

The Alliance is getting a sixth issue out of a total of five? How does that work?

Thanks, I fixed it.

[CyberCubed]

How does IDW afford to put out so many TMNT comics a month? There's 3 for the main series (the ongoing, Alliance, and Armaggeddon game), now Last Ronin series, Saturday Morning Adventures based on the original cartoon, and then usually some crossovers with Usagi or Power Rangers, etc...in addition to all the collections.

I remember people saying IDW needed to scale back TMNT releases and they did for awhile. Now we're getting more TMNT comics than ever.

[AquaParade]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

How does IDW afford to put out so many TMNT comics a month? There's 3 for the main series (the ongoing, Alliance, and Armaggeddon game), now Last Ronin series, Saturday Morning Adventures based on the original cartoon, and then usually some crossovers with Usagi or Power Rangers, etc...in addition to all the collections.

I remember people saying IDW needed to scale back TMNT releases and they did for awhile. Now we're getting more TMNT comics than ever.

Because they are their best-sellers. Follow the money.

[oldmanwinters]

You might say TMNT is one of those evergreen IPs!

[ChosenOne]

Originally Posted by oldmanwinters

You might say TMNT is one of those evergreen IPs!

As long as fans are willing to shell out.

[IMJ]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

How does IDW afford to put out so many TMNT comics a month? There's 3 for the main series (the ongoing, Alliance, and Armaggeddon game), now Last Ronin series, Saturday Morning Adventures based on the original cartoon, and then usually some crossovers with Usagi or Power Rangers, etc...in addition to all the collections.

I remember people saying IDW needed to scale back TMNT releases and they did for awhile. Now we're getting more TMNT comics than ever.

They, like all publishers are doubling down by expanding vertically - basically they are extracting as much as possible from the remaining, neurotic readership through a series of variants where they buy the same book at least 3 times every month. And after that, when that works for a publisher, then they add more titles from the same I.P. to their slate and extract more dollars from the same neurotic readership who were already buying multiple copies.

Think about how effective this is to propagate the lie that the readership is "huge". Even if all a publisher did was release one variant a month they've doubled their readership numbers. Now add-in ratio variants where a store has to hit an order point and you've inflated the readership numbers even more at the order level. In 2022 IDW released 214 titles across their publishing line. Now tack on even only one variant and one retailer incentive per title and right there you've got 642 releases, 428 of which are the same interior pages but with a new poster wrapped around the outside. Or even worse, some of that sale was Trades, so you can take a swath out of those 214 titles down to actual monthly books somewhere.

TMNT #125 shipped close to 23,841 copies. That title had a variant as well as a 1:10 ratio variant. Consider all of that and you'll see that TMNT doesn't even have remotely close to 23,000 readers. The hobby is extracting more units per capita because of variant cover exploitation and extracting more dollars per capita because of increased pricing as well as collectors buying the same comic book 3 - 5 times a month.

And so, when they tell you that a book is "successful", it's true by marketing standards, but not by the standards of consumer buying behavior or a quality measure that counts. You can't dictate "sales from quality" when you've synthetically inflated the sales to a neurotically-completist audience. And not only that, but don't think the title is even selling to actual readers at even those numbers - all you have to do is go into your LCS and you'll find TMNT books still on the wall from months ago, and then eventually snuck into their bins as back issues. IDW is getting by from extracting every penny from a diminished readership - as are most publishers.

I guarantee that the TMNT readership is so small - probably 6,000 readers globally - so small that if every collectors somehow turned off the crazy-consumer-switch in their brain and stopped buying any variants monthly, the title would have to be cancelled. Or they'd raise the price to $9.99 an issue a month so as to keep their strongest I.P. alive.

[TomWaltz]

Originally Posted by IMJ

They, like all publishers are doubling down by expanding vertically - basically they are extracting as much as possible from the remaining, neurotic readership through a series of variants where they buy the same book at least 3 times every month. And after that, when that works for a publisher, then they add more titles from the same I.P. to their slate and extract more dollars from the same neurotic readership who were already buying multiple copies.

Think about how effective this is to propagate the lie that the readership is "huge". Even if all a publisher did was release one variant a month they've doubled their readership numbers. Now add-in ratio variants where a store has to hit an order point and you've inflated the readership numbers even more at the order level. In 2022 IDW released 214 titles across their publishing line. Now tack on even only one variant and one retailer incentive per title and right there you've got 642 releases, 428 of which are the same interior pages but with a new poster wrapped around the outside. Or even worse, some of that sale was Trades, so you can take a swath out of those 214 titles down to actual monthly books somewhere.

TMNT #125 shipped close to 23,841 copies. That title had a variant as well as a 1:10 ratio variant. Consider all of that and you'll see that TMNT doesn't even have remotely close to 23,000 readers. The hobby is extracting more units per capita because of variant cover exploitation and extracting more dollars per capita because of increased pricing as well as collectors buying the same comic book 3 - 5 times a month.

And so, when they tell you that a book is "successful", it's true by marketing standards, but not by the standards of consumer buying behavior or a quality measure that counts. You can't dictate "sales from quality" when you've synthetically inflated the sales to a neurotically-completist audience. And not only that, but don't think the title is even selling to actual readers at even those numbers - all you have to do is go into your LCS and you'll find TMNT books still on the wall from months ago, and then eventually snuck into their bins as back issues. IDW is getting by from extracting every penny from a diminished readership - as are most publishers.

I guarantee that the TMNT readership is so small - probably 6,000 readers globally - so small that if every collectors somehow turned off the crazy-consumer-switch in their brain and stopped buying any variants monthly, the title would have to be cancelled. Or they'd raise the price to $9.99 an issue a month so as to keep their strongest I.P. alive.

Nope. Sorry -- appreciate your negative enthusiasm, but TMNT is legitimately and consistently doing pretty darn good for us... in some cases, far better than expected (and our expectations were already pretty high). Specifically, there's a heavy demand for those RE covers -- retailers are coming to us, asking for more, which leads me to believe they are successfully selling them to collectors and fans. And I gotta say, the TMNT RE covers our amazing participating retailers are putting together are some of the nicest in the biz (then again, I may be biased).

Generally speaking, it's honestly a great time to be a TMNT fan and creator right now... across multiple mediums. Lots going on behind the scenes... far more than has been announced publicly, and not just at IDW. I cannot wait to show off (or enjoy as a TMNT fan myself) all the cool stuff in the works.

Then again, I only work at IDW (and on some of the other secret non-IDW projects), so what do I know? Could be I have this all wrong. Maybe you're being invited to meetings I'm not?

I'm sure I'll still be called a liar (wouldn't be the first time on this forum). That's okay. I know I'm telling the truth... just as I know there are tons of fellow fans, creators -- and many, many awesome retailers -- out there enjoying this crazy ride alongside me right now. We're having fun!

Turtle power!

Talk soon...

Tom W.

[TomWaltz]

Originally Posted by ChosenOne

As long as fans are willing to shell out.

And we truly, TRULY appreciate every single fan who does. We're in this together. One big TMNT family.

Talk soon...

Tom W.

[AquaParade]

Man, IMJ is striking out all over the board lol. Too aggressive. Doesn’t think clearly.

Don’t worry, Tom (I know you won’t), but go look at his comments in the DC movie thread, if you wanna know what you’re dealing with. Guy doesn’t do his research, he just spouts.
He’s probably about to blame you for the sales information not being clear, even though no one forced him to argue sales were low.

Also failed to take into account how well the trade paperback and hardcover collections are selling.

TLR is on The NY Times Best Seller list, the new issue is the #1 “comics and graphic novels” seller on Amazon (above Batman’s current issue), where there are no variants, and the most recent IDW hardcover collections was a top seller for a few weeks on many online stores, like IST.
That’s great incentive to pump out more books.

The line is doing well.

[ChosenOne]

Originally Posted by TomWaltz

And we truly, TRULY appreciate every single fan who does. We're in this together. One big TMNT family.

Talk soon...

Tom W.

Keep the good stuff coming and I'll be there for it, Tom! I’m really enjoying Armageddon Game across all the titles!

[Cowabung-Gal]

Oh, no doubt “The Last Ronin” is selling like hot cakes, and for good reason: it’s a darn good TMNT story, the best in years.

And maybe the newest “Saturday Morning Adventures” is making good money too since it’s a decent series that leaves the older fans feeling nostalgic plus it’s for all ages so younger fans can enjoy it too.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by hypered1

This collection digs into the dark underbelly of the Turtles' New York, focusing on Leatherhead, Baxter Stockman, Rat King, and of course, the sinister Shredder! Gathering stories from their almost 40-year history, see the characters develop from their early roots in the original comics to their monstrous present day incarnations. Delve into issues from the original Mirage series, TMNT Adventures, and Tales of the TMNT to IDW's current ongoing universe. Uncover crucial tales of tragic occasional TMNT ally Leatherhead, conniving scientist Baxter Stockman, the otherworldly Rat King, and the Turtles' archnemesis, Shredder!

I don't think whoever wrote that blurb is very familiar with TMNT.

[Cowabung-Gal]

Originally Posted by TomWaltz

And we truly, TRULY appreciate every single fan who does. We're in this together. One big TMNT family.

Talk soon...

Tom W.

You can count on me buying every issue of “The Last Ronin: Lost Years”, Mr. Waltz. That’s definitely something worth spending money on during inflation.

Every single variant? That’s a bit difficult.

[CyberCubed]

Someone needs to get DC animation/Nick to make a sequel to the Batman/TMNT crossover movie. It ended on a cliffhanger of Shredder falling into Joker venom and becoming a Shredder Joker hybrid and we never got a sequel after like 5 years.