What the heck are THESE???
 

And here I thought my collection was all shored up (Shell Shock, Challenges, Turtlemania, etc). Then I came across these:

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o...trangeness.jpg

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o...e_Universe.jpg

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o...adventures.jpg

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o...ional_TMNT.jpg

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o...in_Turtles.jpg

http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o..._Hollywood.jpg


First time I've ever heard of those titles, and I kicked some mighty obscure rocks over when I was building up my collection. Is anybody out there familiar with them? Are these short story collections or books of artwork/pinups? Any new material to be found, or are they reprints of existing stories?

GAAAAAH, I'm so confused! :teek:

RPG books. Not really a necessity if you are trying to complete your comics collection.

It is the Pen & Paper Role-Playing games made by Palladium

It should be noted that while these are role playing game source books for rules and whatnot, some also contain some original TMNT shorts written and drawn by Eastman & Laird. However, all of those comics were collected in the Shell Shock TPB, I believe.

Here ya go, peeps:
http://tmntentity.blogspot.com/2011/...erview-of.html

I disagree; everyone NEEDS a copy of "Road Hogs"! :tgrin: There are another couple of comics that were reprinted in Shell Shock.

These books are pretty neat as a sort of Mirage side material. I'm not sure that you can really consider much of anything in them canon, but there are little bits of character info that are probably non-clashing with established material if you are into that sort of thing. Some of the characters they introduce could potentially work in a comic (or perhaps a video game) too.

Believe it or not, a few RPG original characters ended up appearing as villains in the Manhattan Missions PC game!

Wow, some crazy covers in there - previously I had only ever seen the first one. Also, lol @ those URLs.

It's always been my secret desire that a more mainstream incarnation of the Turtles would mine these books for characters.

The Terror Bears must have their day.

Same here, man. There's a lot of untapped potential in those books, in my opinion.

At least Andrew/Lawson are putting one of the books to good use in Odyssey, a bit.

I'm working on a fan comic myself that will focus on the Fred Wolf series but draw from the various elements of the multiverse. Some of the information in the Transdimensional TMNT book actually helped me solve a plot hole with a convenient explanation for some pseudo-science.

Sweet overview, my friend! I need to get my hands on these someday -- my first exposure to TMNT was an RPG ad way back when. Good stuff!

Tom W.

I wish they'd update this series with new titles, but given that Tabletop RPG's aren't quite as popular as they once were, that's a bit of a stretch. I own two of these and have gotten outbid on some. I also consider it the de facto source of biographical information for the characters of the Mirage Universe.

The fact that Tom is interested in checking these out make me absolutely giddy!

My local comic shop sometimes has a stack of them laying around. I actually helped Mark "DrSpengler" Pellegrini acquire most of those books. I can probably try to do something similar for you if you don't have any better options. I suspect Kevin Eastman might have a few laying around though.

What is the TMNT & OS Game Shield? I've seen that a few times and wasn't sure exactly what it was (like most, I'm not a pen & paper RPG player) and if I wanted to buy it.

Thanks! The first few volumes are a treasure trove of interesting ideas and villains that never made it outside the gaming world. Doc Feral and the Terror Bears, especially, had a lot of potential as villains.

Those books are worth it just for the amazing art; some of Eastman and Laird's best stuff.

I *think* it's one of those foldout carboard blinds that "Dungeon Masters" use in gaming to shield their papers and charts or whatever from the players.

Yeah, I'm not entirely sure myself, since I've never seen a physical copy in person. I've thought about picking on up off ebay a couple of times, but the price was never attractive enough.

After the Bomb and Road Hogs are about a future where the world is ruled by mutants following a disaster. I believe the US president is a mutant pantheress. Usub Gerstalk (the club-wielding gator mutant in Manhattan Missions often mistaken for Leatherhead) comes from there. There's also a story involving an elderly (and senile) Raphael leading a new NT team.

I can always count on Ninji to prove some info on the RPG-Manhattan Missions connection!

Doesn't one of the gangster rats also show up in the game?

All except for the comic "Road Hogs".

Yeah, he's called "Labb Ratt".

Yeah, Labb Ratt came from the TMNT Go Hollywood volume, which was a thinly veiled anti-drug PSA (Labb Ratt was a pusher; I dunno if that made it into Manhattan Missions since I never played it).

i LOVE the old Palladium TMNT stuff. i was backwards, as a kid i was into the Other Strangeness game first, which led me to the Mirage TMNT comics. the original core book has a ton of awesome Eastman and Laird art created specifically for it, like this incredible porcupine mutant:
http://roaringshark.com/wp-content/u...Pporcupine.jpg

and it's also got cool game stats for the Turtles, Splinter, Casey, April, Shredder, and some others, with neat insights into their personalities. and even back then, Donatello is listed as the tallest Turtle at 5ft. and Raph was the shortest!

Mutants Down Under was my other favorite as a kid, the Eastman wraparound cover is amazing and it's filled with really great Lawson art.

since apparently Viacom/Nickelodeon own everything TMNT-related, i wonder where the Palladium material falls. i'd guess they'd be barred from reprinting the books now, but what about characters created specifically for the core book, like Fred Hamster or the Sparrow Eagles? i wonder if Nickelodeon could appropriate any of them since they technically fell under the TMNT banner.

anyway, if you can get these books, i highly recommend them!!

Yes, that is indeed a great overview.

It also contain a hysterical typo in The Rifter #9 addendum toward the bottom:

I almost DIDN'T want to fix that because it is pretty funny... but the line is supposed to be a direct quote from Siembieda and I have to be accurate in my quotations.

Darnit.

Fine, have integrity or whatever... ;)

That's what I love about that guy. For a TMNT-Transformers-MonsterMovie fan, he's got quite a bit of journalistic integrity!

Also... he writes pretty funny comics from time to time.

I have and very much enjoy TMNT & Other Strangeness. My roleplaying days have passed, but I love the artwork and novelty of the book. My favourite piece of art is the one of Splinter wielding the two tantō. Learning of the others, I really want to get my hands on the Guide to the Universe and Transdimensional TMNT. And Adventures, if only because the cover is really cool.

Wow. Must say, I had no idea I was going to wind up blowing the nostalgia floodgates off their hinges with that post.

Great write-up by Spengs, as always. I know nothing of RPGs and their ways, but I'm intrigued nonetheless and probably wouldn't turn my nose up at copies of those first couple books if the asking price was pittance enough, if only for the artwork, character bios and other assorted goodies.