Peter Laird on IDW TMNT

[Andrew NDB]

From his blog:

"I've read a couple of issues of the IDW comics, and I just can't get into them, for whatever reasons. I think the most off-putting thing about them -- for me, at least -- is that they don't seem very unique, especially as far as the artwork goes. Say what you will about the weaknesses of our original comics as far as the art is concerned -- and I freely admit we had our weaknesses -- at the very least Kevin and I put a lot of effort into what we were doing and tried to make it look different. Or maybe it just ended up looking different because that's all we were capable of doing!

There is also something about modern color comics which drives me nuts, and that is the unfortunate (as far as I am concerned) tendency towards filling every available space with something -- be it linework and/or color -- instead of taking the classic approach of panels with borders and white space in between. I think the latter approach allows the pages to "breathe", and to my eye, anyway, the former approach is cluttered and generally ugly.

I am also disheartened by the way the story seems to be developing -- there just seem to be a lot of changes made for change's sake. And the introduction of yet another mutated animal character right away (Old Hob) pushes one of my buttons, and not in a good way.

I'm thinking that when the first IDW collection of these new TMNT comics is released, I may pick that up and read it all at one sitting and see if my opinion changes.

As far as wanting my input for any ongoing new TMNT productions at IDW, no, they have not approached me. That's probably a good thing, given the direction in which they seem to be heading. And lest people get the wrong idea, I wish IDW all the best of luck with their TMNT projects."

And later:

"Not really knowing anything about this new "Krang", I won't venture an opinion.

[on April naming the Turtles] This is one of the things which I think gives this new comic series a significantly different "feel" than the original TMNT stories that Kevin and I created. There seems to be more trying to make things seem -- I don't know -- "realistic"? Like it's easier to buy a human female naming turtles after Renaissance artists than a mutated rat. There seems to be less acceptance of some of the ofttimes whimsical nature of what Kevin and I did… and I find the result somewhat lacking.

[about the reincarnation angle] It does nothing for me, and in fact seems emblematic of a trend -- to make things bigger and more "meaningful" than they really need to be -- that I see in modern comics, especially in new "takes" on established characters. I was just reading something online recently about someone remaking the origin of Spider-Man, I think, so that instead of just being a kid who is transformed by the bite of a radioactive spider, he's actually the latest incarnation of some spider deity or something (sorry if I am messing this up -- I just quickly read the piece and don't remember where to find it again). I think it kind of started with Alan Moore when he reinvented "Swamp Thing" and turned him into a "plant elemental". That worked pretty well, but the problem is most writers aren't as brilliant as Alan Moore often is.

I also feel that it diminishes the characters of the Turtles and Splinter… like they can't be who they ARE, they have to be like someone else WAS.

And finally, one of the things about the way we created the Turtles that I always liked was the random, accidental nature of it. For some reason, I find that appealing (possibly because the origin of the Turtles sort of mirrors the creation of that first TMNT comic itself!)… and it's why whenever a new project would come up and someone would suggest redoing the origin of the Turtles and almost inevitably start with "See, there's this firm that's working on genetic engineering, and they take these turtles and -- ", I would shoot that down right away. It always felt so boring to me, so hackneyed. So obvious.

Now, I say all of the above with this caveat: I have not read all of the IDW TMNT comics. I think someday I will, in collected form, so that I can read a bunch of them all at once, conveniently. Maybe after I've done that, I will change my mind. Not likely, but possible. -- PL