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Where Does Kevin Eastman Draw the Line?
In light of the seemingly legitimate botched Bay-induced movie script, I must ask: where does Kevin Eastman draw the line? He released statements along the lines of (not verbatim) "fans will be pleased" and he constantly assured people of how cool the new film is going to be. He also gave the green-light to Venus, and created BodyCount.
There comes a point when you have to ask yourself, where does Kevin draw the line? Is there even a line to be drawn, or is Kevin sincerely so open to change that he embraces audacious stories that mangle his creations? |
He doesn't draw the line. Its quite obvious he lets people do whatever they want with the TMNT franchise and allows them to have fun with it. This gives us both good...and bad...scenarios.
If I recall Kevin actually wanted the Image writers to kill off Splinter in that series, but instead they change him into a bat to have him leave the Turtles for a bit that way instead. Someone recently asked Kevin about Venus and he was like, "I still love Venus," so apparently he doesn't view her character as a mistake or anything. |
Given the choice between the two of the co-creators, I am glad that Peter Laird had controlling interest over the franchise during the 00s. I don't really know if the franchise would be better or worse off if Eastman had made all the decisions for the past decade, but I think Laird kept the franchise alive (if not entirely thriving) during his tenure at the helm.
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Laird was definitely a better parent than Eastman. Eastman would let his Turtles play in raw sewage.
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You guys are so fickle.
Everyone ragged on Peter when he had the turtles. Kevin hardly is in control. Nickelodeon owns them now if you seem to have forgotten not Kevin. Kevin is now sort of like the Turtles bad ass uncle. |
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In honesty, Eastman only draws the line when us fans and production executives reject his ideas. But its wrong to hate Eastman since even though he may receive more criticism than Laird, has provided more to the franchise than Laird has. He has a harder shell than Laird being more tolerant to negativity, and seems to support the fans to make projects possible much more than Laird.
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Honestly, and this is almost an 'outsider looking in' viewpoint since most of my knowledge of the two authors comes directly from this forum...I think CyberCubed hit the nail on the head when he said that Eastman's 'looseness' on the Turtles gives us both good and bad things.
Obviously, Next Mutation was fraught with mistakes, but I think it was more about execution than the ideas themselves being bad personally. Could Venus have worked if more care had been put into making her work? I believe so. Was anyone there that could have done that? I don't know, it's probably debatable. As it is, was she a good character? Not at ALL. And now Eastman's willingness to let others play with the formula is possibly giving us alien Turtles...which I'm not so fond of. So yeah, he could stand to be a little more strict on it. On the flip side though, just based on his own statement about things, I find Laird to be WAY too strict. It seems to be literally his way or the highway, and most statements from him seems to be some kind of acidic comment about how something sucked. Sure, it's his opinion, and as the original creator he's even more entitled than usual to have his say on something - but it just comes across so horribly bitter to me. So between the two...I'm probably more 'Team Eastman' if we're picking sides here. |
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In my opinion, the TMNT franchise was (creatively) stifled under Peter because he wasn't open-minded enough. He would routinely draw a hard line against incorporating any proposed idea that reminded him of his memories of the Fred Wolf cartoon. He appreciated the fans, but he had very little patience for criticism. When fans criticized the current state of the Volume 4 comics, the PBBZ reprint, or some other TMNT project he oversaw (sometimes rudely and ignorantly so) he would often respond in a frank and untactful manner. Kevin Eastman, on the other hand, has always been a remarkably open-minded artist, probably to the detriment of his actual work. He shook up the TMNT status-quo with the introduction of Venus in the Next Mutation. He participated in the infamous Bodycount arc simply for the sake of working with Bode and creating "the longest gunfight in comics history." Although I don't have any sources, I think he embraced the weird guest artist/writer schedule on the Mirage Volume 1 comics more than did Peter. In recent years, he has been associated with the new film project and the IDW comics. I suspect he's taken an "(almost) Anything Goes" attitude with how the TMNT are portrayed in contemporary media. It's the exact opposite attitude that Peter took with the 2k3 show and the 2007 Imagi film. If I had to pick either guy to meet and/or hang out with, it would definitely be Kevin. The guy just seems so fun and engaging, and I think he appreciates most aspects of TMNT history and doesn't mind appeasing fans who really love that aspects. But I am nevertheless appreciative of Peter's stewardship over the franchise during what could have been a "dead era." He is the more careful thinker and storyteller (even if not fans found those stories especially interesting). He wasn't afraid to stand his ground against outside pressure to "improve" the brand or "do things differently." It may not have been the best (or the most fun) way to handle the TMNT property, but it did keep it alive and set it up for potential future success. And... I was gonna make some profound statement to wrap things up, but I think I'm already getting bored with this post. |
By definition, it doesn't qualify as a TMNT movie because the turtles aren't teenage mutants in the film. Without all four defining characteristics, it's just a movie with alien turtles. I know it's a technicality but it's a big one.
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"We've allowed the wacky side to happen, and enjoy it very much. All the while, though, we've kept the originals very much ours – forty pages of what we enjoy and want to see in our books, whether it comes from our own hands or from those of the talented people we work with."
From the fan mail. While Laird might not retain that view, I think Eastman very much does. Their comics will always be theirs' and they can't be changed. |
Kevin Eastman draws the line - in his case, it looks more like a decimal point - directly to the left of the last two zeroes, and to the right of a number and a lot more zeroes. :P
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I've read the book Batman and Me by creator Bob Kane, and he said that though people have criticized the campy 1960's television show, he defends it because he says it kept the Batman character alive in the public imagination.
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Kevin, to me, has always seemed like a guy who can't believe he fell ass-backwards into millions of dollars. It's as though he came up with this idea on a lark and never dreamt it would turn into something as huge as what it became. He went along for the ride and enjoyed it. Laird, on the other hand, seems like a guy who wanted to be an illustrator and never got that chance, and who spent many years making concessions and compromises almost to the point of becoming frustrated.
I think their personalities are different from one another, and that's probably why the few things they DID do together were so fantastic. But it's also why they quit working together. Sometimes when you're full of passion and pushing up against something, you produce your best work. When you're comfortable and don't have to worry, and everything kind of goes your way, the work can suffer. I don't blame Eastman for embracing anything and everything Turtle-related (though I thought and still think Venus was a stupid idea). I'd probably do the same thing if a producer wanted to turn my self-published property into a teevee show. But I'd also want creative control to an extent... So I can see both sides of it. |
and looking at the old script, can kind of see was Kevin would of thought that we would all love this movie.
For all we were wanting it, we were getting Bebop, Rocksteady, and Krang in the movie... fans had been wanting them in a movie forever |
Kevin is also having fun himself! :tlol:
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When he's dead?
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I like how open-minded Kevin Eastman has been over the years. As someone else has said he seems like a much more fun-loving person than Peter Laird.
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Kevin seems more loose and open, although some would say too open. I think it stems from the fact that he just seems like a really nice guy. Going by the various video interviews I’ve seen with him over the years, he just comes across as someone who is too nice for his own good. I think that’s part of the problem, he’s just too nice to say “I don’t like it”.
Peter is basically the exact opposite. Out of two, I would much rather work with Kevin. Peter seems far too rigid for his own good. An immovable object. The vast majority of comments he has for things that he’s not directly involved with pertaining to TMNT seem to be either outright negative, or incredibly guarded. His comments can sometimes come across as being very bitter, too. I’m not convinced he doesn’t regret selling off the rights. He comes across as a saner and slightly more passive version of Alan Moore. In a way, I’m actually shocked that they created one of the most influential franchises ever between them. They just seem like completely different human beings. I guess their differences balanced each other out. |
While I'd love to comment, I'd more or less be reposting the words of Old Man Winters.
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For the record, I don't believe Kevin Eastman has ever publically voiced any dislike for any incarnation (or even any aspect therein) of TMNT ever, anywhere, in any way, shape, or form.
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But yeah, you're not far off. |
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You can kinda sorta get where Laird is coming from since he had a hand in creating the original TMNT and saw them turned into kiddyfare. I mean this is the equivalent of that Family Guy episode where Brian had a serious dramatic screenplay, had a chance to have it on TV, but the execs turned it into a raunchy comedy with James Woods.
This is kind of the reason why Stan Sakai chooses to not have Usagi have his own show on any other media. He doesn't want his character to be kiddyfied or made 'cool for the kids' or whatever. Eastman embraces the Turtlemania, Peter regrets selling out. |
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But in case my words earlier came off like I don't like Laird - that's not it. I'm indebted to both him and Eastman equally for creating a franchise that I love in a plethora of forms, that I continue to love to this day. And as different as they seem, that could have been why Turtles worked, is that two completely different mindset people created it. But between the two, I'd definitely be much happier meeting Eastman at a convention or something somewhere. As others have said, he seems to be a much happier person overall. |
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I don't dislike Eastman, how could I? Yet his vast and seemingly endless openness to any sort of recreated or rehased TMNT media is alarming as a die-hard fan of this franchise. |
I also think it bears mentioning that Eastman's had lots and lots of trials and tribulations of his own within "The Industry" at a variety of companies. I think as such, he has a certain understanding and acceptance that you need to let go of your death grip on "your" property if you're ever going to make money on it. I think Laird is/was an "artist" and Eastman is/was a "businessman". That's probably WHY they complemented each other so well, and why Pete's always the "No" guy (over-protective of "his" sacred IP), and Kevin's always the "Yes Man" (anything for $$$).
I think it gets a little annoying when Kev jumps on every TMNT idea and says it's amazing (especially the awful ones), but Laird's stuff hasn't always been brilliant, either. We GET it, buddy, you really, REALLY like Jack Kirby. A lot of people in comics do, they just don't feel the need to remind everyone every 5 minutes. I mean, Grant Morrison does, but he's allowed because... y'know... people actually read his stuff. Just to hop on that for a second, since we all know Pete is a huge Kirby fanatic, WHY exactly do some Mirage TMNT fans get so bent out of shape when sci-fi stuff comes into the property? If anything, the Kirby sci-fi influence was not only ALWAYS part of the TMNT DNA, in my opinion it's even more ingrained into it than the so-called "realistic Japanese ninja" stuff that's allegedly so important. Sorry to go off-topic, just a random thought. Long story short, I think Eastman comes across as a shameless shill because he understands that comics/toys/cartoons/films are a commercial medium, the name of the game is MONEY, and a little (or a LOT of) compromise is essential. Pete, I honestly think, had greater aspirations than TMNT and is resentful he didn't get there, probably because this "silly TMNT thing" took over his life. I think he's ashamed that "all" he'll ever be known for is TMNT, while Kevin simply counted the zeroes and said "That's life". |
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I would have agreed Laird was both painfully dictatorial and artistically-sound at the beginning seasons of the 2003 series, but some of the later stuff really makes me wonder what happened. The last three seasons positively reek of selling out, and make me think maybe Laird defeated himself. That's rather ironic; the whole time that the Fred Wolf series was running on and being unfaithful to the Mirage series, Laid didn't lose any steam in pushing the latter, but once he tried to do a "faithful-to-Mirage" cartoon series, it ended up making him hate the entire franchise, and doom the Mirage series by selling it. At some point, maybe hate consumed him.
If I had to pick sides, objectively, I'd say my own creative mindset is probably closer to Peter Laird's, but nothing whatsoever will justify his extreme rudeness to me. I don't think I've seen a single positive review of any media on his blog. Eastman is a harder personality to understand in some ways. Perhaps he never stopped seeing TMNT as a joke, which is how he intended it, and so for him, it's nothing to get hot and bothered about, but that makes me wonder why he went from ignoring this series for a decade to becoming obsessed. Perhaps he is deliberately capitalizing on an anti-Laird, liberal backlash. Part of me wonders if he and Laird call each other up and scream obscenities at each other--or don't talk, for fear things will go that way. |
How was Laird rude to you?
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Sorry; when I said "to me," I meant "in my opinion."
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To me Kevin seems like he's more in line with most of us, a dude who genuinely loves comics, and wasn't doing it to set out to be rich, but wanted to just make a living doing something he loved & enjoyed, comics. I think that's a dream a lot of us really have at heart, at least I know I do, and the fact that his creation took off, was so surreal, he didn't let the money change him, he was still the same fun loving dude who wanted to just enjoy the ride & create just like always, some of it went great, other parts not so much, but he was still having fun with it & never lost site of why he did it, because he loved it. It really seemed like he has told the stories he wanted to tell & taken the criticism well. Peter seems to be the complete opposite, taking everything very seriously. It seems to me that Peter took everything so seriously, and tried so hard to prevent HIS vision of what TMNT should be, pure (you can't blame him for wanting that) that it burned him out. It's hard to keep a co-created property flowing in the same direction when the co-creators have such different visions, and while on the outside looking in, it certainly seems like Eastman was probably more flexible than Laird.
Honestly now, by reading the Annotations in the Ultimate Collection, Peter is so bitter, that for a lack of a better term, he seems like a jerk. From the outside we'll never know exactly what problems and friction arose while they were collaborating and who was to blame, but Peter has very little good things to say in the Annotations about some of Kevin's decisions in some of the issues. I'm sure he has his reasons for feeling that way & its probably justified, but for us, who can only read what he writes on the subject, and not know the actual circumstances, it leaves him standing there like the villain. His comments & criticism of the IDW series, which has been pretty much loved by most, certainly don't help his case either. |
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Interesting to note Laird once said on his blog that he actually liked the music in COOTS. |
Someone Mentioned Eastman like the Venus De Milo character. Wonder what his reaction to Mona Lisa was.:D
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What is that supposed to mean exactly?
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