TMNT Classics Trades Are Disappointing
 

Why are these in color? Not that I really mind color but the coloring is horrid. Looks like that crap ass Photoshop coloring Laird did on the first TMNT comic way back when. It honestly ruins the artwork for me. I'm more then glad to see them re-release these stories but why do they have to ruin them with these half ass coloring jobs? They should be re-printed as they were originally printed, in black and white. If they want to colorize them they can do single issues like they're doing for the main series issues. Thank god those collections aren't colored too.

This bother anyone else or am I alone here?

I'm with you on that. I think the coloring in all of the current IDW turtle books kicks ass, but as for the reprinted material, it all IS ass.

It's colored because casual buyers won't pick up a black and white trade that isn't an oversized edition.

I'd take a giant Marvel Essential style book with black and white pages. They could do more issues that way. Hell a lot of those Essential books have color art turned black and white and in a lot of cases the books are better for it cause older coloring techniques were mostly terrible. I know the concern is casuals won't buy this or that but they could have at lease tried before dismissing the idea all together. They didn't even attempt a proper release.

I thought the Raphael and Michelangelo issues were alright. Not outstanding, but still good. I haven't bothered with any of the other issues.

Coloring in those TMNT Classics and TMNT Color Classics is really bad, cheap. I'm sure a lot of people here could provide better coloring FOR FREE if IDW asks them. They reach the highest point of nonsense when they attempt to re-color covers that were already in color and they do that so badly that the new colored cover looks like the amateurish version of the original one!
I would buy a couple of those trades as I miss some of the issues they contains but with those horrible colors.. no, thanks!

I guess I'm just not that judgmental of the color (outside of obvious color mistakes). I like that they are finally colorizing them. If I want to read the B&W versions, I'll just pull out the old issues or my old trades.

I like how they colored Shredder in issue 1, his costume was in two colors, metal silver and grayish blue, even his ungloved hands was colored as the suit.

I only have the first two Vol. 1 collections, the one that collects #13 and the Mark Martin trilogy, and I have no problem with the coloring in those collections.

I think the new collections look good. I haven'tbothered with the single issues though. The ultimate collections are much cooler

The point of collections is so you don't have to pull out your old issues. I'd personally prefer not to as I'd like to keep them in good condition. They were originally printed in black and white they should be reprinted that way. At least when they recolored Sandman they did a good job. This looks poor and honestly hurts the artwork. It's inferior. Seems to be the TMNT way. Finally give us something but do it wrong. Give us 2K3 DVDs but mess up the order. Give us Turtles Forever but it's fullscreen and edited. Give us trades of uncollected issues but ruin them with half ass coloring jobs. I know I sound jaded probably because I am. I'm finding less and less reasons to stay a fan lately.

There's more to being a fan than buying merchandise, but I can understand what you mean. You find it hard to continue to financially support the franchise.

These trades are aimed at people who never picked up a Turtle comic before too.

which makes the poor coloring job a bigger crime

As long as all if Vol 1 is collected excluding the Veitch material because he won't sign a deal with IDW, it should be fine.

I just hope Volume 2 isn't re-colored when the whole thing is already in color.

Bobby has already suggested that he thinks they will in order to "keep the coloring consistent." Guess we'll see. I'm still holding out for creator-oriented collections which will hopefully be in black & white.

I'm totally with you on this, they must keep the original colors. After all the coloring of Vol. 2 was better than the one in the new IDW Classics trades. :P
(my avatar on the left is taken directly from a panel of vol. 2)

I can't even understand why they would color Volume 2. They didn't recolor the Archie reprints though so perhaps that's a good sign.

True, but Archie isn't associated with the Mirage comics, whereas Volume 2 is presumably going to be collected under the "TMNT Classics" title. So I think the idea Bobby was trying to express is that they would probably want the coloring in every "TMNT Classics" TPB to be consistent, even if some of those issues being reprinted already have been colored.

I hope they're not doing it that way. They should collect those 13 issues under a different title as they're more than casual issues, they belong to a single story arc. Obviously, supposing they're not collecting them all in only one big book, they should find a good way to name it.
Something not chaotic like:

TMNT Volume 2 volume 1
TMNT Volume 2 volume 2

It would be nice something like:

TMNT Volume 2 - Book one
TMNT Volume 2 - Book two

Or they could use the word "part".