Could Peter's bitterness toward Fred Wolf be about more than just content?
 

I was reading an interview with Kevin (I know the title says Peter, but hear me out), and he said this:
Could this legal battle have been one of many reasons that the FW series puts a bad taste in Pete's mouth?

Wow, I certainly wouldn't blame Peter for being pissed and disheartened about the entire show seeing this is the case.

The more I find out about the background of this franchise, the more I come to understand Peter's frustration.

I imagine this might have been what spurred him and Eastman to go after their own Mirage employees regarding characters and issues they owned partial creators rights to (AC Farley wrote a facebook entry about how the lawyers told him that unless he signed over all rights to everything he'd done while working for Mirage, he would never be permitted to work for Mirage again).

In a way, I can see how this sort of legal battle could leave them antsy to consolidate their rights and make sure nothing like this could ever happen again. And yeah, I can see how something like this could sour them toward the entire Fred Wolf series.

That is a rhetorical question, right? O_o Because it seems you answered it with the body of the post. Never knew it though. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

He should be grateful this show made them as big as they are, as far as I'm concerned.

WHEW that was an EPIC interview. I had never read it before now and it was extremely enlightening.

Hearing Eastman's side of the "mandatory retroactive work for hire contracts" incident... I dunno. He owns up to it and admits that it was handled poorly and unjustly. He spends 2,000 words trying to explain himself, but at least in the end he owns up to his own hypocrisy.

The whole interview was insanely informative. Thanks for sharing it, man.

Here to echo the Dr.'s sentiments. Crazy read...

Reading how all-consuming running the franchise was, honestly, the time and energy investment and what was required of Eastman Laird exceeded anything I ever imagined. Just the summary of the lawsuits they had to endure and the international trademark and copyright puzzles that needed unraveling was positively insane.

In a way, it seemed rather discouraging toward any hopes of creating something, marketing it, and not losing it to a corporation. I can see the attraction in selling your idea to a conglomerate of lawyers just to avoid the kind of crap they went through.

On that note, I think reading this interview will help a lot of people better understand Laird's recent comment about wanting to undo history and make the Turtles never happen. Likewise, why he sold it all off to Viacom in 09. To think he was dealing with that stuff all by himself (after Kevin sold off his intellectual share) for several years...


Also, I was rather shocked to read that while Peter considered the Mirage crew to be close friends, Eastman never thought of any of them as anything more than employees and no longer associates with them. It's funny how my perception was always of Eastman as the buddy-buddy guy and Laird as the staunch businessman when it seems the other way around would be more accurate.

Again, this was a TREMENDOUS read, but a tremendously enlightening one, as well. The most informative interview on the subject I've ever read, as a matter of fact. Well worth the time for any fan.

Well, could have been worse.

*sighs forever for Swat KATS and Gargoyles*

I have had some insight into many of the subjects discussed here. To start with, Kevin spoke at length about some of these legal battles in our interview with him. This, along with a million other lawsuits was a HUGE burden on the guys.

The character rights that AC Farley speaks about (I assume) was in reference to the rights transfer when the TMNT were sold to Viacom. All the guys held the partial rights to their created characters right up till the last day. As each of them were allowed to design and write characters for the toy line, and other publications. The unpleasantness came when the lawyers got involved when the franchise was being sold. Viacom wanted ALL things associated with the intellectual property rights in their hands.

I believe it would be unfair to say that Kevin never saw those guys as friends, I know for a fact that he did and still does! As for the perception of Peter being less warm, this is also FAR from the truth, but sadly is a perception that many have of him. I know of a few personal moments especially in recent times that shows how warm and caring Peter is with the Mirage guys, even though it might not seem like that from the outside.

Well, in the piece Farley wrote, it was earlier than that; when Gary Richardson sent the retroactive work for hire contracts to all the Mirage employees and anyone who had ever worked on the comic (it is discussed at length in the interview, particularly Veitch and Bissette's reactions to the contracts and their falling out over them).

Well, this was an old interview merely being reprinted online, so it's certainly likely Eastman's attitude has changed since then. It's just that in the interview itself, he says as much; that he didn't consider them close friends and only speaks them briefly when he accidentally bumps into them.

It's nice to know that this has changed, though.

And I've had minimal personal contact with Laird, though his comments on several of my TMNT Entity reviews have always been polite and inciteful even when my reviews were critically negative. I think he's definitely a nicer and friendlier guy than fans tend to give him credit for and the popular perception that he's otherwise seems to stem mostly from his letter column in Volume 4 and the attitude he seemed display in it.

I certainly hold no grudge against him and I've found this interview has me rethinking a lot of presumptions I'd made about his actions over the course of the franchise history.

That sure echoes my thoughts. I kept hearing about "that Kevin Eastman interview, just read it" and I guess I assumed it was the same one he did a few years back, sometime after he sold his half of the rights to Peter... I'd never read this and as long as I've kept up with and known the guy, at least a few things in there were pretty shocking.

All of this kind of makes me wonder how things might have turned out differently had Eastman and Laird waited a bit longer to make a deal with Playmates, assuming they could. I say this because, while their comic was selling well by Independent comic standards, it was still very much their own project and few other people's. If they had gone on becoming a more popular comic for a while, and picked up new staff to distribute the work around, maybe by the time they made the TV deal, they would have had an easier time managing the property abd judging the scope of how big it had gotten.

Do tell...
Now that's interesting!

I'm not sure what Kevin means when he says the "different shades of green" was not "doable" in toys and animation. The Playmates action figures always had unique skin colors from the get-go!

Is kinda surprising that Peter was the one who made that choice. Guess he ain't that much of a "purist" after all.

This interview is GOLD.

My favorite part is when Kevin starts talking about the overseas licensing process (or lack thereof). The story about post-Iron Curtain Russia is the best:
God bless "capitalism," eh?

However, the next paragraph makes it look like that the marketing took its toll on Laird moreso than Eastman:

Well that was a beast of an interview but fascinating the whole way through.

The lesson I took away is that it's best to just sell out and let lawyers and sharks do what they do best, and remove yourself entirely from all the "business" BS. Just cash the check, enjoy the money, and live a happy life, rather than spend half your life in court trying to protect yours and everyone else's "artistic integrity" and see that everyone gets every penny of their fair share. In such a blatantly commercial medium like comics, it simply cannot be done.

It seems like the more Kevin tried to do to protect "creators' rights" for himself and his friends, from Mirage through Tundra and all the way through, the more he was forced into the exact "corporate scumbag" role they were all fighting against in the first place, and everything Kevin swore would "get him back to drawing" pushed him even further away. Seems to me like he and Peter both would have been way happier - and probably wealthier - people today if they had just sold TMNT off to DC or Marvel when the franchise was at its peak in the early-90s. Yeah, the purists would complain about how it wasn't "true to the creators' vision," but I think it's been made clear by now that Kev and Pete only had time to work on "their vision" for about ten minutes in the first place before the entire thing got too big to control anymore, and the next 20 years was one big BS hassle.

It probably came down more to the fact a worthwhile offer never came along from DC or Marvel, I know he did mention a Marvel offer early on but I'd imagine if they tried again in say 1993 or so it would have worked out a whole lot better for everyone involved, and I'm 99% sure they would have "sold out" in a second just to be done with the BS. Though selfishly I would've liked them better at DC, Marvel already has too many mutants. :P

Ah well, too late now. I always laugh a bit though at how miserable people become when they fight for "artistic integrity" in a commercial medium. Said it before a million times: Can't be done, you make one penny on your "art" and you're forever a prostitute, you can't have it both ways. People who cash checks smile a lot, people who cling to their "integrity" and "artistic vision" usually end up burnt out and miserable. I know which side I'd fall on; life's too short to be broke, "brilliant", critically-acclaimed and miserable.

There's a ton of other lessons in there, specifically about how you can't turn a Pop's Burgers into a McDonald's and expect it to run exactly the same way as it did when it was a tiny company, but again, I file it all under "cash the check and let the assh*les in suits figure out the rest of it".

People are still pretending Laird hates the Fred Wolf 'toon? Christ.

Didnt anyone read the letters pages in volume four? He doesnt hate it at all.

If he hated it, we wouldnt have gotten Turtles Forever, nor would we have had Bebop and Rocksteady saving the day in it.

Letters
 

What does he say? Where are those letters?

He regularly mentions plenty of hate on his blog.

If not hate he at the very least felt it was a poor interpretation of the characters. Tons of his 4Kids Production blogs speak of the FW series, and not in glowing terms, either.

He may not have hated it, but he sure as shell didn't love it either.

Great interview. Very sad though.

The fact that it started out as just two friends putting everything they had into a quirky black and white comic book and less than 10 years later they were too busy to even sit down and go back to that is depressing.

I'd love for Peter to be interviewed like this. While I can see where all the stress came from, one has to wonder what kept him on board after Kevin left and what kind of crazy stories he had from the 4kids/Volume 4 era.

Also, I can't believe how fu*king insane that legal stuff was! Fred Wolf sues them for money because they made TMNT popular by "putting them in the sewer" and "giving April a jumpsuit"... and then some sh*thead from Howdy Doody sues them for something Fred Wolf can actually be credited for?

Then the homeless guy and his outerspace Presidents... you gotta laugh at that one.

Yeah, it certainly changes the way I view Peter as a person. All that crap would certainly take it's toll on a person. I think all Peter wanted to do was make his comic. Which I can respect.

I certainly agree, but it's puzzling to think what was so bad in 2008-09 that made him sell the property compared to the craziness going on the late 80's into the 90's (which only drove Kevin away).

Wow. What a stunning interview. It really clears up a lot of things and why Pete felt the way he did. I don't think he likes the FW series at all, and this may be why. It certainly makes sense when you read the interview.

I think that it just got to be a bit numbing for him. After all these years,after all the craziness. He was just burnt out from all the crap. All he wanted really was to be an accomplished illustrator, and figures when things settle down for him his heart just wasn't in it anymore.

I do agree maybe he should have left around the time Kevin left. It seems that all these years away from the turtles did Kevin well. Though, Kevin has a different relationship with the turtles. I think Pete takes things a lot more personal than Kevin does and I feel that the turtles were his ''babies''. I'm not sure if that has to do with Peter being older than Kevin or what. Ultimately, I think Peter Laird wanted to do what Stan Sakai has been doing all these years.

On that note, I've come to wonder if being close friends with Laird and knowing about all the horror and furstration trying to mass market the TUrtles was, if THAT'S been a factor in Sakai never actively marketing Usagi Yojimbo outside of minimal merchandise and guest appearances in the TMNT's cartoons and toylines.

I imagine if I saw my best friend getting sued 50 times a week and having his entire life consumed by a franchise he's been losing control over by degrees, that I'd certainly hesitate to try and do what he was doing.


To look at the other side of the coin, we also have to remember that despite the heavy burdens that Eastman and Laird got swept up in, that it was all ultimately their decision to let things get as big as they did. They could have chosen not to market in countries like Russia or whatever Middle Eastern nation that "Shady" guy made trouble for them in, but they wanted the money and the saturation and invited these new troubles upon themselves. I sympathize with the predicament they got trapped in, but I can't ignore that it was a predicament they created for themselves.

Still, to counter my own point, I wonder how much of it was a "Pandora's Box" sort of situation. Once the fad became an ever increasing merchandising phenomenon that they simply lost control of how far and how fast it spread and with everyone and their mother sueing them, they had no choice but to let it grow just to make more money to fight those legal battles.

Clearly, this whole thing was more complicated than any of us ever imagined. In a way, I can understand Laird's "my way or the highway" attitude when he did Volume 4 a lot better. 20 years of dealing with everybody telling him what to do, this was his chance to take back the original incarnation of the Turtles and do things his way and not even the fans were going to interfere with it.

Makes you wonder if the failure of the Space Usagi series was very much a dodged bullet for Stan.

EDIT: Heck, it was even produced by Fred Wolf....yikes.

At the risk of pissing a lot of people off here, the laws regarding sueing someone are ridiculous in the US. You can literally charge anyone for anything, anyone remember that Spin City episode where Paul gets sued for getting shot in the head? As I understand you could actually do that over there. It's insane.

That's the unfortunate truth. You CAN sue anybody for anything in the United States. Though the case can be thrown out by a judge early on if it is deemed transparently frivilous or ridiculous, it still has to go through a certain amount of due process and beurocracy which still costs quite a bit of money. So someone can sue you for anything they want no matter how insane and you still have to spend your own money defending yourself with legal representation.

You can, of course, counter sue and try and reclaim your losses, but that also costs money and there's no guarantee you'll win and get what you spent back, so you could wind up even deeper in the hole.

It's not a pleasant system.

I wish the US could adopt Britain's "loser pays" system; the loser of any given lawsuit is financially responsible for ALL legal fees, including themselves and the winner. It helps to discourage a LOT of frivilous and ridiculous suits from ever being filed, though on the downside, it also discourages many sincere suits from being filed againt large corporate entities as plaintiffs fear they could get stiffed with a bankruptingly huge legal bill if they lose their suit.

Still, it's a more ideal system than the insanity we have here in the US.

Yeah... although there has been a rise of "no win, no fee" attorneys here in the last ten years, which to a degree allow less well off people a chance of being able to raise a case. Of course the case has to be seen to have a chance of winning in the first place, otherwise it wouldn't be taken on...

Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird
 

Reading TMNT comics (Archie and UK Hero Turtles) and watching the 1987 cartoon (just read the old cartoon closing credits), I always knew that Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird was the name of those who created TMNT. I always knew it was a comic book first back in 1984, then a cartoon in 1987 (and of course, I thought Archie was the original).

I don't think anything was "so bad" in 2008 that Pete had to sell, I think it was Nick came along and hit the magic number. The Eastman interview was what, 1998? In it he says he and Laird had already long ago decided to just sell the whole thing off if the right offer came along. Clearly, nobody made the right offer until Nick did, simple as that.

If he had, I'm not sure that would have been good for us as fans. Sure, Peter would have gotten some air, so to speak, and the '87 series probably would have gone down the same way. We probably would have seen a revival around the same time as the 2003 series, but I highly doubt we would have gotten anything near as well thought out and properly produced as that cartoon.

It really is sad what corporate greed does to people. I have a cool idea for a TV series that I'd like to produce someday but the more I hear of these legal issues people keep having I'm very hesitant to share my ideas with the world.

The US Legal system isn't justice, it's poker. Many times things don't even reach a judge because one side may have more money than the other...and they'll drag it out until the other side goes bust.

Trying to adopt a "loser pays" scenario doesn't change that. If Nick or "The Mouse" has more money to toss at lawyers then they're going to win. So then you've got the little guy having to come up with the money to pay the big guy for his big guy lawyers. That alone would keep people from filing suit in the first place.

Or that in the end it drove two good friends apart.

For all the great the Turtles provided millions of us these last couple decades, the inner machinations sure do provide a somber look into the realities of "making it big".

As a great political thinker (rumored to have been Bismark, though this is suspect) once said, Politics are like sausage. Tastes great, but you don't want to see it made. OK; so this is business, but how much difference is there these days?

Although this interview has helped me to sympathize with Peter a little bit more and respect his opinions on things, it doesn't change the fact that there are still things about him that kinda irks me sometimes and come across as rude to me. His backhanded compliments on the fan-made remix of issue 1, for instance, really kinda bothered me. "This was good, but I would have rather it been like this..." style of remarks from his review of the fan-made tribute was like if a child showed a parent a drawing they had made, and the parent was like "That's great kid, too bad it ain't perfect."