Fate of the Mirage TMNT

[rs_jr]

I do love to see Lawson come back on a new ongoing mirage TMNT but with some much TMNT coming out of IDW not sure it will sell well plus they probably have to collect volume 4 first so people are caught up

[Leo656]

Can someone actually "sell" me on Jim Lawson?

Like, seriously. I don't get it. He can't draw. Or at least, he can't draw humanoid figures or faces with anything less than the clumsy grace of a well-meaning first-grader. Most people who gush over him tell me openly that they don't read other comic books, which tells me that his art is "good" because they like TMNT and he draws it, but not for much other reason.

I can't think of a single artist on a popular or licensed book whose work was more "ugly". Okay, his dinosaurs are neat, but otherwise...

I mean I'm not trying to be mean, I just don't think the guy's stuff is even a little bit eye-pleasing and it baffles me that so many people love it. And when a lot of them tell me, "Well, I don't read other comics," it kinda makes me assume a lot.

I'unno. I probably won't change my opinion ever, but I'd love for someone to honestly try and explain what it is that makes him so special. He's the objective worst guy out of the entire Mirage crew to draw the main-story books, but he's the guy everyone wants. Why not, like, literally anyone else from Mirage? Consistency? That's dumb. Comics should be eye-pleasing.

Probably a nice guy. No hard feelings, no ill will towards him as a human being. I just really, truly find his art physically painful to look at, and I'd like to know what I'm supposedly missing.

((Shrug))

[Zog The Magnificent]

Yeah, I honestly don't get it. I actually think his art looked way better during City at War, but then he developed his "modern style," which at this point just doesn't look good. I mean, he can draw nature and creatures just fine, but he can't draw human beings. It's very stylized, to the point of being incredibly misshapen and off looking. The only reason he's still around for things is out of tradition's sake at this point. I won't say that it's ugly or the worst art ever, as there were some TMNT short stories that looked worse. That one where they talk about fear, for example. It's not even ugly, persay, it's just unappealing. I can build a resistance to this art, but truly ugly art I don't even want to look at. I've always believed that the story should come before the asthetics, and Jim Lawson is a great example of why. At the very least, having Jim Lawson does make it feel authentic, because like it or not that is what a lot of official TMNT comics looked like.

[rs_jr]

Ya
I agree not a fan of modern Lawson

But old Lawson when it seemed he was inspired by laird art was the best Lawson

[Leo656]

I'll agree he used to be "better" but I'll never say he was "good".

I think he got a job because his buddy ran the show, and he has a lot of loyal fans who never heard of Neal Adams. But that's my admittedly biased and very cynical take on it.

[Zog The Magnificent]

I dunno, it's weird. Like, I don't hate it, but I don't exactly like it either. I can stand it, but it feels more out of necesity than anything else. If I didn't read anything he drew, I'd miss out on half the Mirage TMNT library.

[AquaParade]

Jim's work isn't highly detailed nor are his layouts or perspectives very dynamic, so I understand how his art could come across as rather boring or ineffectual to some.

What I like about Jim Lawson is the surreal aspect to his art. There are a lot of visual moments in Volume 2, mostly involving Baxter Stockman that weird me out in a good way. His work also fits the "slice of life" type vibe of Mirage TMNT. Sort of mundane, yes, but it works at times.

Most of all, I love Jim's pencils on City at War, but I believe he had assistance on that, right?

I'm not a huge fan of Jim's work on volume 4, at least past the first several issues where it appears more detailed. I think his work typically benefits from color.

[Leo656]

A human face that's made up of two misshapen circles and a Spaghetti-O definitely is "surreal".

[AquaParade]

Originally Posted by Leo656

A human face that's made up of two misshapen circles and a Spaghetti-O definitely is "surreal".

Maybe that's why Pete wanted so many aliens in Vol 4.

But really, certain panels just looked cool. I like some of these panels:

https://www.miragelicensing.com/comi...e02/01/01.html

https://www.miragelicensing.com/comi...e02/05/05.html

I'm sort of proving my former post wrong - some pretty cool perspectives being utilized in Jim's art. Again, I get it the criticisms though.

Volume 4 started off looking pretty good too:

https://www.miragelicensing.com/comi...e04/03/03.html

And then it eventually became this, which I'm less fond of:

https://www.miragelicensing.com/comi...e04/23/23.html

Edit: Volume 2 was dope and I want a hardcover bad.

[Leo656]

I think what bothers me the most is that every other major Mirage TMNT penciller was SO much better than him, but his style is the "Mirage standard" due to the volume of his work, not the quality of it. He drew the most issues by far but his work was poor compared to everyone else who drew the "canon storyline" issues.



This. This is what I want. Lots and lots and LOTS of This.

I actually got this as a poster as a kid but I never knew what it was based on until many years later. I don't have it up anymore but it's one of my favorites!

[Sharman]

Laird stated several times on his blog that he had a conclusion planned out for volume 4 and even mentioned that he might just publish the synopsis rather than continue creating the comics.
But then he apparently lost interest in even doing that, so ...

A part of me still hopes that something will stir within PL and nudge him out of retirement just to finish volume 4.

But, in reality ...

[AquaParade]

Originally Posted by Leo656

I think what bothers me the most is that every other major Mirage TMNT penciller was SO much better than him, but his style is the "Mirage standard" due to the volume of his work, not the quality of it. He drew the most issues by far but his work was poor compared to everyone else who drew the "canon storyline" issues.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._vol_1_4-2.jpg

This. This is what I want. Lots and lots and LOTS of This.

I actually got this as a poster as a kid but I never knew what it was based on until many years later. I don't have it up anymore but it's one of my favorites!

This is one of my very favorite images of the TMNT. I had this print of the issue when I was younger. It's gorgeous.

Jim is definitely hit or miss for me, but when he's on, there's no denying he is a talented artist. But yeah, the above piece is on another level.

[Leo656]

Yeah, definitely. It's one of my all-time favorite and most iconic images of them. I'm not even a "red bandanas" guy and as a kid it confused me, but it's SO damn clean it doesn't even matter.

Just a serious, serious piece of business, right there.

[AquaParade]

Lord, I love all those old painted Mirage covers. The ones done for the collected editions too. Farley, Dooney, Eastman & Laird as well, if I recall correctly, were all just putting out gorgeous TMNT artwork. Arguably some of the best content to come out of the franchise, really (if one could ever argue such a preposterous thing).

[Leo656]

Yeah, man. I get the exact same awkward half-chub when I look at 'em as when I see the Ecto-1A or the Mach 5.

I'unno if that's indicative of an underlying medical condition but I've learned to accept it and live with it.

[Toxin45]

Now with the covid-19 pandemic the comics are delayed and I fear mirage is gonna disband if it hasn’t already.

[Galactus]

I appreciate his current output isn't to their taste but I'm highly sceptical of people who say that Jim Lawson was never good. I mean Return To New York and the 1990 movie adaption still look ****ing awesome - some of the best TMNT art around as is his Tales Vol.1 art. I put this down to both deliberately aping Eastman and Laird's style and because he knew tonally the stories called for a more 'serious' art style than that found in say his Secret of the Ooze adaption a year later (which is still pretty nice albeit a bit more cartoony) he did a year later or his Adventures guest spots. City At War struck that 'right' balance between his then two differing styles and is still amongst his better art.

I actually thought the initial art of Vol.4 was very good when Laird was inking it and putting his own style over it which does show a lot of Lawson's current style lives and dies on who inks it and whether they put some of their own style over it. Personally while I appreciate Eric Talbot's art I don't think is a good 'fit' for Lawson's, I can't remember who inked Burning Man but it was much better. Lawson's art looks better when he inks it himself, it really brings out that what he draws well he draws ireally well such as non human characters, dinosaurs, motorcycles and environments etc.

His art may have evolved in a direction away from realistic approach he took on his best early work towards the jagged cartoony approach he has now but he has also seemingly grown as a storyteller. Vol. 4 in particular has a lot of cinematic touches and given that Laird isn't story boarding and is seemingly working more like the Marvel method that would mostly come from Lawson himself. Also it's best to remember other than when IDW throws him some work he's only really published in indie books and that audience has very different standards than the kind of audience who largely buys only the big two.

I'd argue the same argument applies to Vol. 4 as a whole. It's a big experiment on Laird's part and for anyone who happens to like it not meant to compete with Marvel or DC. Tales V.2 was the alternative but even then I'm not sure it was ever meant to be anything but Murphy's own tastes until Dan took over were he seemed to make a genuine effort to market the book to people who haven't bought TMNT books before but it's format was always a deterrent. I think what Tristan Jones was vying for for actual rotating creative teams doing arcs as opposed to one and done stories with a followup potentially five issues down the line was the way to go.

I've had the suspicion for a while that one of the reasons he set Vol.4 aside wasn't just that he was burned out but that he himself felt differently about it. He's openly said he regrets April's origin and that he originally was going for an apocalyptic ending but around the time of the Imagi movie changed his mind. He even floated the idea of a Vol.5 with more traditional TMNT stories. What exactly 'traditional' means for Peter Laird is probably up for debate. Would it require undoing a lot of the changes Vol.4 brought in? We know Don and Raph's transformations were always designed to be temporary but it even seems reversing Splinter's death (which is a shame as I thought that was very well done) I have a feeling he'd want to keep the Utroms and other alien's around in some form even if they wouldn't be omnipresent in this hypothetical Vol.5.

Originally Posted by Toxin45

Now with the covid-19 pandemic the comics are delayed and I fear mirage is gonna disband if it hasn’t already.

Mirage will continue to exist in the same capacity it has existed since the TMNT franchise was sold to Viacom. It's a website that sells their old stock of comics and merchandise and maybe the slimmest hope they'll publish something new again.

[Leo656]

There's no "Shrug" emoji here.

I concede his early stuff was better but I've never been thrilled by him.

Very first work of his I saw was in an issue of TMNTA, and I was incredibly disappointed in it.

I'm kind of a crab. In books based on popular or licensed characters, I prefer that things be as on-model as possible. To 7-year old me, Lawson's stuff comparatively looked like something out of a bootleg, off-brand coloring book or something. I didn't love the movie adaptation's art much at the time, either. I've always been rather critical, I guess.

I mean it is what it is. Perhaps there's a chance my opinion would be more kind if I'd come across his stuff much later in life or something instead of a bratty kid who just wanted his Turtles to look like the guys on TV, but I don't know. I just know that whenever I show his stuff to anyone who's never seen it before, they unanimously go, "Wow, that's horrible", so my gut feeling that you kind of have to be a TMNT fan with a strong affinity to Mirage to even appreciate his work still holds for me. Although I grant that, like me, most of the people who I've showed it to are people who grew up on "mainstream" comic books, so I guess that would also skew the data.

I'unno mang. As I said, I do agree that his early stuff was better and that a ton of it depends on who inks him. But if you need the right inker to make your stuff look great, then... well, that's not the strongest endorsement, y'know?

Like I said... no Shrug emoji.

[TMNachoT]

Originally Posted by DK2

Kevin has mainly implied Last Ronin is more Mirage than any other TMNT incarnations. Since the story outline was made during their Mirage days and Peter is getting credit I think that's safe to say. But he also says any readers or fans for Last Ronin can deem it for any TMNT incarnations' future too. We can't dwell on any of the dangling plots from Mirage volume 4 that I think your referring to rs_jr. We have no closure for that run. Last Ronin is really more of a "what if" or "elseworlds" for the turtles. Yes there were some Mirage shorts that had Don as the last turtle. Hard to say if it's Don for Last Ronin though.

But that was way before Peter wrote vol. 4, so i am pretty sure when Pete wrote the stories for such issue, he did not take that last runin story in consideration, at least he never mentioned the last ronin when creating vol. 4 so yes, we can say this is some kind of elseworlds thing or something not related to Mirage.

[Galactus]

I must admit his TMNT Adventures art I've always found severely lacking. As a kid I rarely took notice of the credits in the comics I read so you could have blowed me down with a feather when I realised it was the same guy that did that and the 1990 movie adaption. One was clearly so much better than the other.

I first clocked it was the same guy with the Secret Of The Ooze adaption. It was a weird hybrid of his Adventures and 1990 movie adaption style. Granted the drop in quality could be due to the lack of Peter and Kevin assisting him but he's done great looking work on his own like Sons Of The Silent Age and Tales V.1 without them so I would largely put it down to that the animated series in which Adventures was based and Secret Of The Ooze were 'silly' versions of the property so he adjusted his art accordingly.

It's strange that his art would develop down those lines but I also wonder if time was a factor too. As in he had to crank out a lot of stuff very quickly he developed a more abstract style that he he could knock out as fast like Jack Kirby ended up doing.

In regards to his quality being dependent on who inks him many a comic artist had had their work enhanced or ruined by inkers. When Lawson inks his own work or paired by someone who sticks very rigidly to his original pencils you at least get Lawson's strengths; as has been said before what he draws well he draws really well but most of the time he gets an inker that puts something of their own drawing style over the top of it and some like Laird fit well with him whereas Talbot does not.

I get you wanting things on model but there were plenty of unique looking depictions of the turtles out there back then. The action figure box art being an even more stylised version of the comic book art, video game box art etc It never really bugged me if licensed characters looked different as long as they were still recognisable.

Anyway I've lectured you enough on this (sorry I'm bored stuck inside all day) but ya like whatcha like but just offering you a different perspective.