Thoughts on DW Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Comics

[Powder]

They're worth grabbing if only for the art, even if it is a bit light on turtles.

[Leo656]

Eh, they were ok. Lot of wasted potential, though.

I can't really disagree with any of Spengs's criticism. At the time even the art didn't bother me much but I was reading a dozen books a week. Having not looked at it in a while before now... yeah, that art is pretty awful. "Style" is one thing, but... ouch.

[DrSpengler]

I'm not out to pick on anybody in this thread; everyone is entitled to their own tastes and what they personally define as "good".

But I honestly cannot get behind the idea that Lesean Thomas was a good artist. Every panel of his is just littered with fundamental flaws and mistakes to the point where they cannot be glossed over as "stylistic choices". It's just bad art, plain and simple.

He draws everything separately on a tablet and then combines them after the fact, to the point where the characters never look like they're physically interacting with each other, objects or the environment. They all end up looking like they're floating in different dimensions, on different planes of axis.

This is a prime example. The people aren't drawn in the same perspective as the environment and aren't interacting with the objects in it. Everyone's off in their own dimension. Is that guy with the mustache completely two-dimensional? He has to be if he's somehow standing between the curb and the car parked against it.

That's not "style", that's a lack of basic composition.

Little April's teeth are all the exact same size and shape. No canines, no bicuspids, no molars... an entire mouthful of incisors.

That's not "style", that's a lack of basic anatomy.

Drawing April's face in the exact same three-quarters perspective in every panel because it's a simple, easy shortcut is not "style". It's substituting bland, monotonous stock poses and angles because they're easier and don't require one to step out of their comfort zone.

Drawing Casey with his golf bag draped over his right arm as he goes flying, then draped over his left arm when he hits the ground isn't "style". It's a lack of proof-reading skill and understanding of panel to panel layout and continuity.

This 5 year-old girl is supposed to be sullenly explaining that her mommy has been taken away by doctors, but instead looks like she's shooting Raphael bedroom eyes. That's not "style", that's an inability to craft appropriate facial expressions that match the situation and dialogue.

Drawing a character's eyes drifting in opposite directions isn't style, it's... Jeez, I don't even know WHAT to call something that bad. And also in that series of four panels, check April's expression in the bottom right. She's supposed to be reacting in shock, but he kept her eyelids still partially laden while her eyebrows are rising at peak height. That's called a "dull surprise" (something Dreamwave artists were notably good at). And her facial features aren't even aligned right. Here chin is pointing straight down, but all her features are lopsided to convey a totally different angle.

And then there's THIS masterpiece, right here. Just LOOK at that. The scale between foreground characters is way off, another setback of drawing everything separately in a tablet and then pasting it all together in the end (like putting stickers over a photograph). Look at the awful attempt at foreshortening on the guy in the background's right arm. Why is the big guy's arm SINKING INTO his leg? His knee is pointed directly level to the reader, so it isn't tilted up to block the view of his arm. And his arm HAS to be sinking into his flesh, otherwise it wouldn't be so skinny.

And that's not even getting into blatant, shameless shortcuts, like copy-pasting the same art across multiple panels so you don't have to redraw anything.


This was 10 years ago and maybe he's changed, but circa 2003 Lesean Thomas struck me as an artist in a hurry to be famous but without the fortitude and patience to actually practice the fundamentals of the craft. Basic layout. Basic anatomy. Basic perspective. All those cornerstones that an artist NEEDS to understand before they can develop their own unique style.

Instead, he uses "style" as a substitute for "substance". Perspective is off? "It's my style". Anatomy is brutalized? "It's my style". Layout continuity is jacked up beyond coherency? "It's my style".

"Style" has become a sort of "criticism-proof vest" that lesser artists use so that they can never be held accountable for their mistakes or overall lack of ability.

I'm sorry, but I cannot look at Lesean Thomas's art and see anything good about it. And it isn't a matter of "style". He just doesn't know what he's doing. Or at least he didn't back in 2003 when he drew this stuff.

[Powder]

Good lord. Wow. It's certainly not as good as my vague memories imply. You're right on every technical point, that's for sure. I gotta admit it's been a loooong time since I gave these a read, and then I was hardly a comic reader or competent artist at that time, so I didn't pick up on any of this. I still do really like his turtles, but that's all.

[CyberCubed]

What I didn't like was the artists making 90% of the characters black out of reverse discrimination. Lesean is known for this, purposely making as many characters black as possible out of spite.

[Jeff]

I remember buying every issue and reading them the week they came out, and that's where my memory of this series stops. Either I have some form of mental deterioration or it really was bad.

I'll have to dive into my dusty, unorganized, college-era short boxes and give them a reread sometime.

[Coola Yagami]

I wonder why no other company snagged up the liscense. It was made during the beginning of the series. It lasted enough seasons for done other company to make 2k3 based comics. It's like dw killed it for anyone else dooming the show to not have a good comic series like the 90s and 2012 ones.

I still would have liked Archie to follow the sonic route and keep the series going even when turtle mania died. I would have liked to have seen small 2k3 references work their way in there whenever 2093 came along.

[CyberCubed]

Yeah I always wondered why Archie didn't get the TMNT license again with the 4kids series started.

Does anyone know if the comic was pitched to Archie back in 2003?

[Leo656]

Spengs, all of that was spot-on. I'm pretty sure it was Neal Adams, a master craftsman if there ever was one, who famously said something along the lines of "'Style' is just an excuse for not knowing how to draw properly."

Sadly, there were a LOT of books back around 2000-2004 that had art similar to LeSean's "style", all over the place, even at DC and Marvel, so at the time I guess his didn't stand out as much, but man, that stuff is a trainwreck.

Wasn't he "discovered" by Rob Liefeld? That sure explains a lot, if true. One hack mentoring another. (What's funny/sad to me is that almost 30 years later and Liefeld still sucks, yet still gets work and is a semi-star even now. Madness.)

[Heather Breckel]

Originally Posted by oldmanwinters

Heather, you have so much more talent and skill than that colorists-by-committee that DW employed.

Thank you very much!

As for LeSean Thomas, he's still around and he does some pretty awesome stuff nowadays http://leseanthomas.deviantart.com/ He's recently done work on Black Dynamite, The Boondocks, and I think he also did stuff for Legend of Korra.