IDW and Image reprint/ conclusion news
 

Take this for what it's worth:

I just met Frank Fosco at a local con here in IL. I had him sign my turtle artists jam piece and while he was signing I asked him if he will be doing anything with IDW in the future that's turtle related.

He said yes in fact I'm currently working on all of the trade covers that will collect the volume 3 issues (about 4-5 covers). He even showed me the first cover and it's pretty neat. I asked if the trades will include the Savage Dragon issues because of rights and what not. He said yes that there a few things they are working on to get those printed as well, like not putting the Dragon on the cover.

He also said he is currently working on an official three issue conclusion to the volume as well! I asked if those will be released as single issues or just be included in the trades. He said there is talk of both (single issues at first and then those issues being collected in the final trade).

So there you have it, from his mouth to my ears to your eyeballs.

Good news about the trades, but I really feel like the conclusion is unnecessary. I love the Modeen two parter.

Fantastic news, thanks for sharing.

IDW, please put the conclusion in single issue format!

Simply amazing!

You are welcome!

If they take the basic gist of the Modeen 2-parter and expand it out a little more with room to breathe, all the better.

Still. I'm skeptical of this "and a new conclusion, too." I suppose we'll see.

Not sure why he would lie but I'm a I'll believe it when I see it kinda person myself.

This is absolutely great news!

Business decisions change. We've heard "we're absolutely reprinting Image TMNT" then "we're not reprinting Image TMNT" then "we may someday reprint Image TMNT" and now "we're reprinting and FINISHING Image TMNT."

I stopped holding my breath a long time ago. If it happens, it happens (and I'll be damned excited). But until then...

I'd feel a little more doubtful if they moved onto another volume or they stopped releasing trades for older material all together. They have been slowly churning out the material and it seems about that time for vol 3. I guess we need to keep our green fingers crossed.

I'm just happy this confirmed IDW is making trades of this series.

At only 23 issues long they can breeze through it too.

That was probably supposed to be a secret. :tlol: If so, it's one I'm glad to be in on! Curious to see if the finisher will be more or less an adaption of the material Andrew & co. did or something different. I'd hope the former, it really tied things up perfectly, & was in part the child of Carlson's mind, after all. If they did something to further establish it as a standalone universe rather than keep it relatively ambiguous or even directly tied into Mirage, that will bum me the hell out...

The thing is Andrew's Lady Shredder was the one from the unfinished Tales of the TMNT issue, she was Tang Shen's sister as I recall.

In Image Lady Shredder was intended to be Karai, but that wouldn't fit with her truce with the Turtles at the end of Mirage.

Shoulda saved my money and waited just a little longer then, eh? :tlol:

Although these will undoubtedly be colorized instead of B&W...

I'm interested to see what Image looks like in color.

If I recall correctly, when Andrew started working on the finishers, he said that Gary was unsure as to what his intentions were with respect to Lady Shredder, but that she was not intended to be Karai. I think he later said it might have been, but I chalk it up to memories lost to time. Prolly wasn't gonna be Karai after all.

Anyway, Frank was coloring pages on his own a few years ago.

http://i.imgur.com/2qBvDiI.jpg

No clue as to whether or not he'd be doing these, but I know he wanted to at one point. I'd rather have them remain black & white, these issues were drawn specifically to be that way, with lots of spotting & heavy contrast. Much of it would look awkward in color, I think. The new material that our very own Sabacooza colored looked awesome, but Frank drew it knowing it'd be fully rendered, so it works. I'd like to see Courtland do it, if anyone. He compliments the style well. I'd really, really hate to see the same team who colored Mirage reprints do these, those were quite poor & riddled with inexcusable errors.

I did color a test cover that Frank submitted. I've not heard anything about getting the gig for at least coloring the covers the last time I talked with him but maybe it's a bit premature.

Disappointing for us fans, too, really. You outshine them all.

I still wish IDW would leave reprints as black and white. B&W just seems to suit Mirage TMNT so much better than color. I think my least favorite volume of Mirage is Volume 2 for that reason. So much color... :tlol:

Thanks. I appreciate it. I suppose I could ask about it.

Wait, if these issues are colorized will it by Image artists or the same people coloring the Mirage collections? Can you imagine if the latter colorize the Image heroes wrong?

I imagine that's who it would be, unfortunately. So I can't be totally excited, I feel some dread, too. :tsad:

Can you imagine if they color the Image heroes CORRECTLY? Deathwatch is freaking RED and GREEN, for Laird's sake.

Imagine a polka-dot colored Savage Dragon.

I guarantee you if I were coloring this, it would be colored correctly. I worked with Frank in the past with the 30th anniversary and some Vanguard stuff and he runs a pretty tight ship. That's a good thing.

Who thinks they'll be releasing the original image run as single issues before colletin them in trades?

Color classics maybe?

Not sure why you would think that. They didn't do that for Volume 2, it just got the collections but never any single issues.

Well, this is a pleasant surprise. With this, all that will be left for Mirage is Volume Four. Here's hoping for good news on that after the Image issues are released.

I definitely need to get the trades for the Volume Two issues before this comes out.

They're still also only up to issue #25 of Tales, so there's a long way to go. The next Tales trade collects 26-30 and comes out in August.

Aside from that, IDW also has a lot of the Mirage specials and mini's to collect. Stuff like the Turtle Soup, the crossovers, the Tales spinoffs (like Leonardo Blindsight), etc.

If Nickelodeon allows. That's the catch.

Why wouldn't they? Royalties or something?

Basing the possibility on the fact that they are supposedly planning a conclusion to the series.
Doesn't guarantee anything but it's interesting to consider.

There's 23 issues. I don't think IDW is going to make people wait 23 months for this to come out. That's over 2 years.

4-5 issues a trade, for 5-6 trades. Let's optimistically say 3 trades a year. We're still waiting over 2 years. Took Volume 2 about a year and a half, I think, and it was only 4 trades.

IDW does 5 issue trades now, even their Tales trades are moving to 5 issues.

Works perfectly for Image since the opening arc was a 5-parter too. After that they can collect 5 issues for each for the next 4 trades (bringing it to 20).

And if they're working on a conclusion, the last 3 issues can be collected with the conclusion...assuming the conclusion itself is no more than 2-3 issues length of material.

Yeah, but I think they'd try to break up the trades to more naturally collect the story arcs (where possible). #10, for example, starts a story arc. If it's collected with #6-9, it's sort of the odd man out.

I wonder if the Image collections will get a new title, or if they'll be "Classics Volume 11" or something like that.

I'd still like to see IDW put the Mirage comics into B&W trades as they should've been doing. Also I think the Image series could be done into a one and done B&W tpb just look at the initial B&W tomes they did for John Byrnes Next Men. Image Vol.3 TMNT would be suited for that. If what Frank said is true I'll be happy for a real IDW/Image conclusion. I'd assume some of the story elements from the fan made conclusion would be used as Carlson was involved with the plots wasn't he? If Franks gonna be involved then I assume Gary Carlson too. This makes me happy.