Mighty Mutanimal Benchwarmers get their moment in the spotlight?
 

And they're getting their own series!! Here's some artwork for it! :D

http://lavignebrownart.blogspot.com/...-gonzalez.html

It's not the actual Mutanimals. Mirage holds the rights to those characters and they have no interest at all in doing anything with them. Ryan's comic will be with characters that were rejected for the old action figure line (like he's been showing on the blog in recent weeks).

That still sounds pretty boss...Yeah...I said boss...I'm totally bringing that back.

And Mirage is publishing it?

Oh yes, I totally agree. Just wanted to make sure the technicality was clear, 'cause I think Raph's Girl misinterpreted it.

No, Mirage is not involved with this at all. Oh, and Ryan forgot to mention this detail, but the comic will be printed in color (flat, a la the old Archie books).

I'm thrilled about this news: I'm sooo buying those comics! :)

Sounds cool. Since I never got extremely attached to any specific Mutanimal in the first place, a new cast won't bother me. Just play it up like Giant Size X-Men #1, just don't rescue the old team in the process.

I hate being negative, but this sounds like a disaster.

In the grand scheme of the comics industry, there aren't a whole lot of Mighty Mutanimals fans out there. Take the number of fans who are willing to buy a Mutanimals comic and then subtract all the fans who won't be interested because the comic lacks every Mutanimals character they recognize.

I just can't fathom it being even a modest seller. I'll buy it, of course, because I like Ryan Brown's work and the concept of the Mutanimals in general (and I'm a competionist consumer whore). But I don't see this appealing at all to the casual fan with fond memories of the Mutanimals or even a lot of the hardcore fans, who won't see it as being the "real" Mutanimals.

Way to read between the lines, folks. :P Good job pointing that out, Rose.

A book with anamorphic animal characters could be profitable, if Ryan and those behind this project have realistic expectations about the market they're trying to reach. And since Mirage isn't publishing it, it at least has fighting chance.

It'll likely be a 5-issue mini-series.

Let's see a new comic that uses second tier mutants that nobody heard of, its not connected to anything else, and its not being published by any major company.

How many comics today have talking animals in them?

There are a few comics floating around featuring talking animals or anthropomorphic animal characters, just the ones I could think of include Mouse Guard, Mice Templar, Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters, Gold Digger, Usagi Yojimbo, Elephantmen, even Rocket Raccoon has made a comeback at Marvel.

Thanks for the clarification. ;)

I've given the thread a new name for now, unless someone can think of something better. We don't need to confuse folks with what's actually going on...

They still print those?

There's a new vol of Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters. It starts out with just the new group, which includes a female. The original group went their seperate ways years earlier. Haven't seen a new issue for a couple months tho....and just when the original group was reuniting to save their "siblings".

Unless I'm temporarily retarded, I'm not seeing anything referring to them being based on the recent figures shown (such as the grasshopper samurai). Most of the rejected figures were of previously established characters, such as Krang, Cryin' Houin', and Burne Thompson. All that was referred to were that they were rejected characters. I'm hoping more for these guys:

http://lavignebrownart.blogspot.com/...-mutation.html
http://lavignebrownart.blogspot.com/...utanimals.html
http://lavignebrownart.blogspot.com/...ght-shift.html
http://lavignebrownart.blogspot.com/...ls-mayhem.html
http://lavignebrownart.blogspot.com/...wn-toilet.html
http://lavignebrownart.blogspot.com/...s-cartoon.html
http://lavignebrownart.blogspot.com/...utanimals.html

No, he didn't mention that in the post, but he told me in an email last week that the comic will be based on rejected action figures (I don't think we've necessarily seen all of the ones he has to pull from). The plot and characters are going to be secret for awhile, though. Boo.

Ahh. Now how were we supposed to know that, eh? ;P

If you ever want me to verify my source on something, you can feel free to ask. But just know that I don't make things up. :)

Nah, it was more of a matter of my thinking that you or I had read the blog entry incorrectly, is all. I was not aware that your information came from a secondary source outside of the same text I was looking at.

Then it probably has roughly the same chance of succeeding as any other indy comic with unknown characters, with possibly slightly more of a chance because there will be a small amount of familiarity with a few fans.

It's probably still going to be a major underdog like anything that isn't a Marvel or DC comic, but I don't think it's going to necessarily fail just because it's loosely based on a TMNT spin off but may not appeal to hardcore fans of that spin off. Who knows, it might have decent success if it gets good buzz.

Sounds to me like it was an idea started on a whim because of responses to his blog. It happened on Murphy's blog too, it honestly seems as if the fans are influencing their decisions on what to do.

This book is going to be nothing like the Mutanimals, its going to star second-tier mutants that nobody heard of, and its without Murphy writing the plots (since he did most of Archie), how good can this be? I agree with the person above, this sounds like a disaster waiting to happen brought on by the fans.

Even on Peter Laird's blog you see people begging him to re-submit the old rejected toy pitches to Playmates again, but unlike the others he's not going to do it because it makes sense not to try again what was turned down once before. Sometimes I wonder if these blogs are more of a curse than a blessing.

I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think Murphy will be writing it. Whenever Ryan talks about the Mutanimals it's always in the context of "me and Murph." And in respect to this new project he mentioned to me that he had been talking with Murph about it.

The thing about this is that you really need to separate it from TMNT in your brain. This is going to be a little independent comic book and there's not going to be expectations of huge sales. I also don't expect that TMNT fans are their only target audience. As much as it will appeal to TMNT fans, I think they just want to make a good comic book that absolutely anyone could potentially pick up and enjoy.

Oh, and Ryan and Murph have been wanting to resurrect the actual Mutanimals for awhile now, but Mirage owns those characters and doesn't want anything to do with them, so they remain dead.

Is there concept art or action figure prototype pictures out there anywhere that might give us an IDEA who exactly is going to be starring in this series?

Has it been said yet who's publishing this?

My question is if this will be sold at regular comic stores.

Seriously? Ain't dat always the way? People that own something don't want to use it, but they won't sell them to anyone who wants to do it.....

If the writing is sharp and the artwork also, I will give this a shot. I just hope that Mirage doesn't secretly own those characters as well, or they may have to start over from scratch.

:ohwell: So will this be with Ring Tone & the rest?