Ask a Question: IDW's TMNT Editor Thread

[Bobby Curnow]

Originally Posted by neatoman

I have a few questions about choices with the characters, this is a little long so please bear with me.

So I noticed how you guys at IDW and the Nick crew seem to pick roughly the same characters from the lore, is it coincidence or does Nickelodeon insist on certain characters?

As for characterization, how do you guys decide on what to change from earlier incarnations and what to keep the same? Some examples here, Bebop/Rocksteady are basically just more violent versions of the characters from the cartoon, Hun is similar to the original Hun but his dynamic with Casey is different and Angel as Nobody is pretty much only similar to the old Nobody in that she's a superhero. All have changes but they are quite different types of changes.

Finally, are there any things that were tempting to do with certain characters but you guys decided against in the end? For example, while I'm personally happy you didn't make April a newsreporter since I don't like the idea of her being a newsreporter, considering that News April is the version of the character many people have nostalgic feelings about, I imagine someone must have been tempted to make her a newreporter? I know some of the Nick crew really wanted to hint that their Teenage Alien Psychic Ninja version of April would somehow become a reporter, so it's not hard to imagine something similar might have gone down over there.

Nickelodeon doesn't dictate plot or characters at all. They are great in that regard. I think both we and the Nick toon are just pulling from a lot of different TMNT lore that's come before us, and there's a certain logic as to when to introduce increasingly obscure characters. I'm surprised they waited as long as they did to introduce Bebop and Rocksteady and Fugitoid. But i'm sure the same could be said for us and some of our characters.

In terms of characterization, I don't think I have a very satisfying answer for you. Mostly it's just seeing what aspects of a character fit for the overall world and story we are telling. Basically we just sort of feel it out and let our individual take come through. A lot of supporting characters are either from the cartoon, so aren't very deep, or are obscure to the casual fan. As a result there's a certain amount of freedom to play around with them. This is a better question for Tom, as he is really the one who develops character's personality (BTW, Tom, if you are reading this and have something to add, please chime in!!)


In terms of characterization we didn't go with... hmm, that's an interesting question. The only thing that comes to mind a bit is Casey. I kind of miss the completely nutso original Mirage Casey, but at the same time I don't know how much we personally could have done with that version of the character. Another creative team might have been able to make that Casey work. As for April, I think we always thought there was more to do with her if she was closer to the age of the Turtles and stuck to her science background from her original Mirage appearance... which is something we'll be exploring more soon.