Bringing back the TMNT Fancomic series
 

So a few years back, smack in the middle of 2K3 fun, my bro and I did a TMNT comic series, which I think we did just for fun before the idea of 'hey, let's scan them in and show them to everyone!' became a thing.

Basically the Turtles are pretty much like the 80's versions, but toned down and a bit more serious to go with the situations. While Shredder looks like the 80's version he leads a very human Foot as well as the Foot Elite. Baxter is also based on the 2K3 version since not only was he based on the comics, but he was more 'bad-ass' than the 80's version.

And yes, we also have April as her 80's news reporter self, and even though in the first issues she had to live with the Turtles to avoid having the Foot find her, the rest of the Channel 6 staff does eventually appear.

Also we were fans of Law & Order back in the day, occasionally Briscoe and Green make appearances cause they do, that's why.

After Shredder's defeat, the Turtles go about their lives, running into other villains and other characters like Renet, Aska and Nobody. Baxter came back and sent both the MechaTurtle and Metalhead after the crew. I decided to go back to this old series and draw a bit here and there, though I might be rusty. It's been years.

I'll be busy re-organizing these comics on Deviant Art and will be posting the issues here.

https://www.deviantart.com/mistermar...ncomic-issue-1

The Turtles meet April after Shredder sends the Foot to permanently silence her.

https://www.deviantart.com/mistermar...ncomic-issue-2

As the Turtles try to find out just how large of an organization the Foot is, Raph goes off on his own and runs into Casey Jones.

https://www.deviantart.com/mistermar...ncomic-issue-3

Raph and Casey team up and face off against Shredder's second in command, Shen Chao.

https://www.deviantart.com/mistermar...ncomic-issue-4

Baxter Stockman announces his new invention, Mousers, but the Turtles and the Foot soon discover that he's using them to rob banks.

https://www.deviantart.com/mistermar...ncomic-issue-5

Baxter has captured April without the Turtles knowing. As the Turtles try to escape Baxter's traps, a Foot Ninja appears to settle a grudge with Leonardo.

I'll post the others as I organize them. You can prob thank OldManWinters who keeps reminding me to bring this back every few years.

I'll just edit this post as I organize more of the older issues, unless people comment in between. :tgrin:

https://www.deviantart.com/mistermar...ncomic-issue-6

The Turtles finally catch up to Baxter, unaware that he had kidnapped April all along.

https://www.deviantart.com/mistermar...ncomic-issue-7

Raph and Casey run into Viper, a guy that killed Casey's father but is also now recruiting people for the Foot.

https://www.deviantart.com/mistermar...ncomic-issue-8

Leo and Mikey run into some Foot Ninja, and they all captured by the Rat King.

https://www.deviantart.com/mistermar...ncomic-issue-9

The Turtles come home to find April and Spinter have been kidnapped. They finally decide to take down the Foot once and for all with the help of Don's new heavily armed Turtle Van.

I do have to say, I guess it can't be helped where we all leave our personal calling cards in things when we made fancomics. Tigerfog might have been a huge fan of anime, as there were some anime/manga references in his series. Andrew seems to love blood and guts so we got Turtles chopping people's hands off in his comics. I guess my fondness for April O'Neil and her bum made it into these comics too, lmao.

As I re-read and re-organize the older issues so far I have found...

-Baxter checking out April on a view screen as she's leaning way over while hacking into his computers

-when April vanished, the Turtles and Splinter felt she abandoned them (they haven't known each other that long), Mike said 'I guess we're all a sucker for a pretty face' and Raph adds 'Yeah and her backside wasn't so bad either'.

-when April goes to shower, she is attacked by Mousers that attempt to tie her up and kidnap her. The Turtles first hear her screams and one of them say 'she found the peephole'.

I had a convo with my bro last night talking about when we drew these issues back in the day and even he was surprised we did all that, LMAO.

I guess they really are TEENAGE Mutant Ninja Turtles. Now of course, this is all just pervy humor. There is no Turtle/April lovin' in this series. LMAO.

Not to toot my own horn (well ok, just a little, lmao) I do like all the 'what are they doing when not fighting/B plot' things I toss in there. Like, it takes several issues for Don to finish what would be the Turtle Van. One issue have Raph and Mike add a sound system to it behind Don's back, playing 'Ninja Rap' at full blast. Don flips his **** and tells them to get all that extra junk out of his van NOW! lmao.

So, do you plan to draw new episodes or this is just a walk through memories?

New episodes once I finish organizing them all. I do intend to draw new pages tonight after a few practice runs. I haven't drawn a turtle in years. Issue 19 was never finished, so I'll finally return to it and wrap it up.

I got like 18 issues to organize, so I'll do new pages here and there as I do that, but at least with the links newcomers can catch up. Even I have to go re-read all that to avoid plot holes.

I'm looking forward to the new stuff then :)

New page should be up after a few hours but OMG.... this is NOT like hopping back on a bike again after 8 years. It took me several tries and there a lot of mistakes to fix post-print, but IDK how I used to draw constant pages without barely any mistakes back then.

https://www.deviantart.com/mistermar...9-23-867370387

Here we go guys, first new TMNT page in 8 years.

Is this what Peter Laird felt like? LMAO Not that I'm comparing myself to him at all, I'm a nobody, but like... how many years has it been since he last did anything for Volume 4?

It's impressive how, 8 years later, your style is pretty much the same. You improved the quality of the scan though. I have a Canon Canonscan LiDE as well but my model is older.

This is something I've wondered more than once, even considering he stopped to update his blog. Does he still draw? I mean, not just Turtles. How can a professional artist stop to draw? How does this affect his feelings and his creativity?

That part wasn't easy. If anything, I didn't want it to look worse cause it's been so long. It's amazing that since we live in a keyboard/touchscreen life, it's felt like forever since I held an actual pen in my hand that wasn't for anything more than just signing paperwork or whatever.

From my understanding, he was just super burnt out on Turtles, I guess the scheduling, overwatching over how the franchise was going since after Eastman left it was all him, whatever, and it was taking time away from his family.

The odd part is, and I need some experts here, is I don't know of anything that Peter Laird ever did that wasn't Turtles and I guess Fugitoid from before. I know Eastman at least did that Space Riders or whatever that was and also worked on Heavy Metal magazine.

Before Mirage he drew a few short stories for fanmagazines and before that he was doing illustrations for local magazines. Around the end of the City at war arc he drew a couple of issues of Stupid heroes, a failed attempt to expand Mirage beyond Turtles (I have the first one and it's not great). So, nothing important I would say.

Welcome back to the saddle!

Wait... what happened to page 22?
EDIT: Oh, looks like the Deviantart listing for "Previous Page" was just a typo. Also, looks like Page 22 was posted in PNG format while the other pages in issue 19 were JPEGS.

That's odd.... cause the pic I uploaded was a JPEG. It's been eons since I used Deviant Art. Maybe they auto-convert them to PNGs nowadays?

Also the funny thing I noticed, I was asking myself about how the world and technology has changed in 8 years but like... idk, my stories were never about that. I'm too busy with the action and whatnot to show Donnie whipping out a modern-day tablet unless the story actually forcibly calls for it. I think the only technology we go into are like the wacky cartoon technology like Baxter's robots and whatnot.

I would suggest to save your scans in PNG format, JPEG compression tends to introduce ugly compression artifacts.

Hmmm aight. I converted it back to a PNG.

https://www.deviantart.com/mistermar...comic-issue-10

The Turtles continue the gauntlet on the way to Shredder, having to fight past the Foot Elite and Baxter's dangerous inventions. Meanwhile, Casey and Viper fight it out to settle old scores.

https://www.deviantart.com/mistermar...comic-issue-11

The Turtles finally make their way to the Shredder. Finally the Turtles face the leader of the dreaded Foot Clan!

https://www.deviantart.com/mistermar...comic-issue-12

With Shredder and the Foot defeated, the Turtles start their new lives with new friends and April returns to her job. As the gang go out to dinner, they run into a new villain, Enchantress and her gang and their attempt to rob a gem with magical powers.

https://www.deviantart.com/mistermar...comic-issue-13

When the Turtles learn about Enchantra's motives for revenge against those that wronged her, they wonder if they should get involved since they recently took revenge on Shredder.

https://www.deviantart.com/mistermar...comic-issue-14

When a masked killer with weapons is loose on the city, Raphael thinks Casey Jones snapped and goes out looking for him.

https://www.deviantart.com/mistermar...comic-issue-15

All Mikey wants to do is to rush out to the store and grab some pepperoni... but instead he gets mixed with with Aska, mobsters and a girl scout.

This was the last full issue drawn by my bro before life just got too busy.

https://www.deviantart.com/mistermar...comic-issue-16

Don meets Renet and is taken to the land of the pirates.

Also includes a one-page gag of April playing the classic NES TMNT game. This was around the time we first discovered the AVGN, still known as the Angry Nintendo Nerd back then. Dang, who knew he'd still be around nowadays.

https://www.deviantart.com/mistermar...comic-issue-17

Leo runs into an evil hypnotist swordsman with the help of reformed Foot Ninja Mark and a new vigilante named Nobody.

Hmm apparently my bro did do a few pages of this one. I forgot why but it seems we both took turns drawing this one.

https://www.deviantart.com/mistermar...comic-issue-18

An evil Turtle that looks just like Leo is running around killing people and making him take the rap for it. Can the rest of the Turtles trust former Foot Ninja Mark as they try to work together to solve this mystery?

This was the last issue I completed before leaving Nevada and whatnot. After all these years I'm getting around to finishing issue 19 and working on issue 20.

Just checked- my [email protected] email still works. Wowza.

All these years later but I always enjoy seeing some new stuff!

I have gone through your thread and I gotto say, great art, I like the spirit of it all.

And to get back on the problem of getting scans right, there is no shame into getting a PC and a scanner running for that part of the thing. sure it's old fashioned but it WORKS!

As for your style not changing in 8 years, heh, you just gotto work with with how you're comfortable. They say the same about my art, but when you take THIS which I drew 20 years ago...
https://www.deviantart.com/rastasaiy...nair-839605936

Or this, which I drew 12 years ago
https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca88...-Hk6TyVuoJmD64

And compare it to my current ongoing TMNT comic "The Full 80%", that argument falls flat, my art HAS evolved.
https://www.deviantart.com/rastasaiy...e-67-861878401
I decided to abandon using Photoshop to color my arts and color them completely by hand. Sure, you can still see that I made it but I got more fluent in my line work. And facial expressions.
https://www.deviantart.com/rastasaiy...-120-875464125

So my recommendation to you is to just do what you do and don't let any comments on your art not having changed bother you.

I'll go on and read your comics dude, Cowabunga.

Youre a good artist, dude!

Thanks man, please check out my comic
https://forums.thetechnodrome.com/sh...ad.php?t=62662

Yeah your art is amazing and I definitely do see improvement.

I might do more pages over the weekend. Time to wrap this up.