Is Peter Laird on the autism spectrum?
 

Had anyone ever thought this before? He definitely gives that vibe sometimes.

I have no reason to think so. I think some people might think he's grumpy or less apologetic than expected, is that he doesn't have the same sycophantic filter that is typically expected from people working in arts and entertainment. Let's keep in mind here, his claim to fame didn't come about by kissing Hollywood asses and pretending to be nice to producers/"seniors" like most of those people, he was just a dude who made some comics for conventions with his roommate and those comics just kind of ended up forming the basis of a giant media franchise. It's not like he really had to attempt to seem as likable as possible.

And I think the reason a lot of TMNT fans might be a little irked by him, is that many of them grew up with the FW cartoon and expect him to at least give some faint lip service praise to it, and instead he just flat out calls it "dopey and boring". You know, that the franchise's co-creator straight up says their favorite childhood cartoon is terrible, probably stings quite a lot.

Short answer really is just that this man hasn't had a reason to censor himself like expected from most famous people, so he might just come across as a bit unusual.

I can get that. It would be like fans that only watch that kid show Spidey and his Amazing Friends and expecting Stan Lee to vouch for it as if it was the original comics he worked on.

Autism also wasn't widely diagnosed till the early 2000's or late 90's at best. Back in the 60's/70's/early 80's, most people had no idea what autism even was.

I don't even remember hearing about it the first time till around 2003-2005.

How much of it is just cranky old man phase? Or has he always been this way?

People are who they are, not everyone is personable. Doesn't mean there's anything "wrong" with them or needing of a label/diagnosis.

Hes totally reading this thread.

Eh, maybe if this was 15-20 years ago. Nowadays I'm sure he doesn't care much anymore. I'm still concerned about his health.

The main reason I’m asking this is because of his emails with Lloyd Goldfine during the 4kids day. We know he liked the show but he had like ZERO tact when he saw something he didn’t like in a script lol

lol hopefully Trump doesn’t chime in!

In other words... Splinter is to Turtles as Laird is to angry Fanboys.

Well, ya taught them well, guy. *shrug* lol

I think I have two major critiques of Laird as a literary artist.
1. In many of his stories, he’d lay his politics on pretty thick, often to the detriment of the fictional narrative. I’m not saying he didn’t have a right or warrant to work his morals, philosophy, preferences into the story (great writers often do), but it came about in a way that diluted stories. This became especially tiresome when characters would go on extended diatribes about… whatever in TMNT Volume 4 or some issues of Tales v2. Rarely would any philosophical conflict be waged against fully fleshed-out characters with defined personalities, balanced by virtues/flaws which allows readers to immerse themselves into the ambiguity of a situation where the answer wasn’t always clear. The best moments of Vol4 were often when a character did something without words, leaving the true motive and endgame uncertain, like Donatello holding onto a piece of fur from Splinter’s funeral. There is a saying that good fiction writing tells the reader more about the characters, but bad writing just tells you more about the author. I think we learned a lot about Laird in his last run in the comics.
2. When a reader would write-in with a critique or complaint, Laird seemed to focus most of his energies on responding in the editorials about why the complaint was stupid and why the person was probably stupid. Not saying he was wrong to use a soapbox or bully pulpit now and then, but I always got the sense that the negative fan feedback affected him way more than positive feedback. And I think that’s a problem a lot of creatives have about being thin-skinned. It’s good that he was willing to publish the critical letters and interact with them, but when the creator uses that as a starting block to launch a vindictive counter piece that is 2 or 3 times longer than his responses to other letters, you have to wonder if the creator secretly desires those negative reviews to use as a practice dummy to air out his own frustrations about… deeper stuff going on in life. I started to expect the letter columns would include at least one rant every month. When it became a pattern, I think regular readers just assumed Laird was like “the kid who takes his toys home when he got mad.”

All that being said, I respect him for sticking to his merits for so long, being willing to put out 1 or 2 books a month at a financial loss just to ensure Turtles remained a comic book IP and kept developing the mythos. He’s truly one of those rare creators who believed enough in their creation that it was worth keeping around to say something more when he probably could have rested on his laurels and just pursued merchandising deals or licensing media adaptations that wouldn’t have been his vision.

His Turtle blogs were great fun, and I think overall he did a better job of interacting with fan comments without losing his temper.

I thank God Laird was so hands-on with the scripts of the 4Kids show. He made it his mission to get as much as his own touch into the show as possible. And I get the impression many early drafts were lazy products of hack/inexperienced writers. Without Laird, the series could have been even goofier than the Fred Wolf cartoon at its worst.

In this modern world there's this stupid need to put labels on everything. We went from wanting to be individuals and not go by labels, to wanting to label and/or diagnose everything.

I still want to know what Laird was planning when:

1. He had Casey "accidentally" sleep with Karai in one of the last Vol. 4 issues.

2. After Don found out the Splinter who died in issue 10 of Vol. 4 "wasn't the Splinter who raised us" we then see another Splinter appear in the Battle Nexus in the last issue or two of Vol. 4 that was published. So what does this mean exactly? The real Splinter never did die, and the Splinter we saw in the first 10 issues of Vol. 4 was just some alternate Splinter? Also by doing this Laird just pretty much retconned Splinter's death just to bring him back to life, which is weird since he seemed against stuff like that.

3. Michelangelo wants genocide against the entire Styracodon race just because the Regenta betrayed him? So why does he want to kill the rest of them?

Also the whole thing with Raph as a gamera fizzled out in the end, and Don became the size of an action figure. Like what was all that about.

I try to take it with a grain of salt, because for the most part it's a thing with a particular young generation, not a specific political agenda as some try to frame it so often. (Though it's hilarious that the Zs claims to be against labels, etc, yet obsessively has gone very aggressive on labeling any little thing. Personal identity and individuality gone overboard and turned in on itself, becoming conformity.)

https://www.autismspeaks.org/autism-statistics-asd

1 in 36 kids these days has autism, and 1 in 46 "adults." The difference is now they're diagnosing more and people with it, whereas a lot of old people from the 90's or prior never got diagnosed when they were kids/teens because most people didn't even know what it was back then.

But I do get the feeling some doctors get a little trigger-happy assigning labels about it. I still don't even really understand how you get diagnosed with it in the first place, like people react differently to tests especially children.

Thoughtful response, thank you.

I know Peter’s later work is more associated with that kinda lowbrow political commentary, but I was just thinking the other day how bad “Survivalists” was. Gotta love that pure Laird art though!

Overall, yes he was a greater benefit than a detriment, but one thing always hated was that it seemed like he was a big reason the 4 turtles were always pigeonholed into their trademark “personality”


Leo (who was such a bore in that show) made a joke? No, that seems like more of a Mikey line.

Donnie got angry at something? Sorry, that’s Raph’s department.

Stuff like that.

I was diagnosed with Asperger's when I was mid 29 back in February 2012. The schools I went to as a kid saw some autistic traits in me, but they couldn't give me an accurate diagnosis back in 1993.

I wish I knew in the past 13 years about Asperger's than I should of back when I was in school. It would of made my school years less scary because I was one of those kids who got picked on and bullied and terrorized to a major extreme.

I just wish employers would be more understanding of those on the spectrum, because, according to my research, about 80% of those diagnosed with autism are not working and 20% are just struggling with their jobs. I mean, it's not my fault that I was born with this situation and being forced to take a psych test where the questions didn't make sense to me and asked experienced based questions that left me sounding and feeling confused. 23 years into this never ending job search and I'm still dealing with the same crap that I did when this whole journey started when I was 18 out of high school. It's the hiring manager who continues to make autistic lives harder than it already is for us. Employers are my enemy.

#1, no, I don't think he's on the spectrum. He strikes me as a more introverted, introspective kind of guy. #2, no, I don't really think he was heavy handed about any politics outside of the infamous Vol. 4 lettercol. Like I've said about Murphy and the Archies, he might pepper this or that over a story, but it would always be story and character first.

Can Laird sue for defamation because of this :lol:

No, I have never thought he is on the autism spectrum and I don't care if he is.

What's your take on Volume 1 #12?