End of Mirage Group

[CyberCubed]

Well 1984-2021 is one hell of a run. Even if it's moreso 1984-2014 or so when the last Volume 4 issue came out. The company started before the internet was mainstream and they had to run print ads in magazines and newspapers. Imagine how much easier it would have been to spread the word of Mirage comics if the internet existed in the mid-80's. Kind of crazy to think about how much easier life would have been for Kevin/Pete if they did this like a decade later, but even then, there would have been much more competition by the mid-90's.

The 1980's is practically ancient history now, another world from another lifetime.

[frank_one]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

The 1980's is practically ancient history now, another world from another lifetime.

This means we are ancient history too

[LeotheLateBloomer]

I guess it was only a matter of time but I'm still very unhappy about this.

All those memories of surfing the site and ordering Mirage TMNT comics including the latest Volume 4 issues during high school. Those were the days...

[funatic]

Damn. I'm so thankful I finally got to tour the studios last year when picking up some books from Lawson. I think most of the remaining stock of merch went to Eastman for his fanclub website sales. Shame, it would have been nice to go dumpster diving.

[frank_one]

I wonder why they didn't even try to go beyond Turtles after the sale of the property. They were a bunch of talented, creative guys, couldn't they have started something new? New characters, new stories. As far as I understand, Lawson is the only one who published new comics in recent years, but he didn't receive any help from Mirage, he basically had to self-publish them through Kickstarter. Couldn't Mirage have survived as a non-Turtles publishing house?

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by frank_one

I wonder why they didn't even try to go beyond Turtles after the sale of the property. They were a bunch of talented, creative guys, couldn't they have started something new? New characters, new stories. As far as I understand, Lawson is the only one who published new comics in recent years, but he didn't receive any help from Mirage, he basically had to self-publish them through Kickstarter. Couldn't Mirage have survived as a non-Turtles publishing house?

Probably not. History suggests that either as a group or individually, nothing these people do outside of TMNT would ever make any big waves.

Furthermore, the comic book industry is notoriously hard to make any impact in outside of the big companies. Independent publishers go bust all the time, and the print market's been shrinking for years.

I doubt any of them were ever interested in doing comics about super-heroes or licensed characters, or they would've been doing that before. And if you're not doing either of those two things, your comics have no audience. They'd never be able to get enough money together to license a significant outside IP to publish, and even assuming they did, I'unno, a "Justice Force" book or something, it'd never sell.

Mirage was "The TMNT guys". That's it.

[MrPliggins]

Also, they tried many times with varying success. Their Next imprint in '93 was their foray into the superhero realm. Stupid Heroes, Xenotech, Bioneers, etc. There's also Planet Racers, Gizmo, etc. The Turtles were lightning in a bottle. Nothing else, as good as it was, could conceivably reach the same level of success.

[frank_one]

Stupid heroes! I managed to pick up the first issue many years ago out of curiosity and to see some Laird art in a non-Turtles story. It was bad, really bad.

[DK2]

Originally Posted by frank_one

Stupid heroes! I managed to pick up the first issue many years ago out of curiosity and to see some Laird art in a non-Turtles story. It was bad, really bad.

Laird was honoring and imitating Jack Kirby with that comic. If you look at it overall, Peter and Kevin weren't really good at drawing humans overall. They always looked clunky, short and proportioned wrong. It's like they were really just meant for the turtles. The whole Next line was a failure and nothing lasted not even a handful of issues.

[DK2]

I didn't even know Mirage totally shut down til now I looked on these forums. I have only looked up the site the odd time randomly. It's kinda sad now to know and see. Not surprised either. Like others have said they probably ran out of the lot of tmnt merchandise they had and the old comics only had minimal if any stock left. I've noticed seems they hoarded a chunk of comics off to Kevin's online shop. Even the Fugitoid exclusive figure was being sold there at times. He was selling comic lots as sets, etc. Sad I was actually able to order stuff from a publisher themself. Completed or filled gaps by buying from them years ago. Got all the final volume 4 issues thru them when ever they were last being printed. It's the end of an era. I agree none of the other mirage staff would be able to do anything away from tmnt and be successful. And there was no need for Mirage to publish that stuff either. Jim and Peter did Plantet Racers under a different studio name. As said before the Next line. Jim also had Zeromayo Studios for his dinosaur comic Paleo. One wonders why none of this didn't just stay under the Mirage name too? Seems silly to have multiple studio names. But yeah it's the end for Mirage now.

[frank_one]

Originally Posted by DK2

If you look at it overall, Peter and Kevin weren't really good at drawing humans overall.

True, their humans look weird... and I like it

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by TMNTChris1980

In this era of giant corporations owning every license, and changing them into one homogenized product, Mirage Studios serves as the benchmark for what a studio/publisher can be. Make the comics you want, with the artists you want, and don't worry about the bottom line.

Or concerning yourself with potential Netflix deals, etc..

[Coola Yagami]

Feels like a whole other lifetime when I first found this forum and Volume 4 was just announced.

[D Piddy 1982]

Originally Posted by DK2

Laird was honoring and imitating Jack Kirby with that comic. If you look at it overall, Peter and Kevin weren't really good at drawing humans overall. They always looked clunky, short and proportioned wrong. It's like they were really just meant for the turtles. The whole Next line was a failure and nothing lasted not even a handful of issues.

Up until I read these posts a few days ago I didn't even know Stupid Heroes existed. Went on eBay out of interest and picked up a mint copy for 0.99 GBP. It's actually quite cool to take a look through some Eastman or Laird work (finished, published work) that isn't TMNT.

The forum continues to be a place that gives!

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by frank_one

True, their humans look weird... and I like it

You're not wrong. And yes, it's great. And also it is fascinating that we may never know where the Laird ended and the Eastman began on so many pages early on, or vice versa. Eastman with the generally harder, more Miller-esque touch. Laird with the softer, detailed approach. Kind of everybody won when they did work together.

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by Coola Yagami

Feels like a whole other lifetime when I first found this forum and Volume 4 was just announced.

When Vol. 4 started I was still a 15 year old in High School. Time flies.

[oldmanwinters]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

You're not wrong. And yes, it's great. And also it is fascinating that we may never know where the Laird ended and the Eastman began on so many pages early on, or vice versa. Eastman with the generally harder, more Miller-esque touch. Laird with the softer, detailed approach. Kind of everybody won when they did work together.

Early Mirage is definitely one of the most interesting cases of artistic style symmetry in all of comics history!

[sdp]

No surprise, we've had hints at this for years and it was clear nothing was going to happen even Laird said "I haven't felt like going back to Vol.4, don't know if I will" and the only updates on the site were how they were slowing things down further. Of course it's still sad to have it confirmed but at the same time we can stop hoping for Laird to ever do more Vol.4, we now have confirmation it won't happen and Mirage was never going to do other non-tmnt projects.

When I got back into TMNT in the mid 2000's Vol.4 was already on a hiatus I think, the archie series was "finally" going to publish Forever War and the 2003 show was going to begin its fourth season, and of course the 87 show had just gotten their first DVD with the first season and some weird episodes from one of those "later red sky 90s seasons". I caught up with everything in TMNT from the official Ninjaturtles.com website, watched the pilot KidsWB video dozens of times on my realplayer, read about the comic books, the TNM mail answers and whatnot. It was kino.

People might ignore this but it was 40 years ago but it really is true, imagine thinking about comics from the 1940s in the 1980s. In the 90s I thought of comics from the 1950s as old and ancient history. Then again, comic writing changed a whole lot between those decades and comics have stagnated in style since the 80s and 90s, they're still doing the same things.

[Jephael]

Originally Posted by Jephael

I'm more upset over the idea that Dan isn't going to bother posting the Archie comics stuff on the Mirage Group website than Volume 4 possibly never being concluded.

Originally Posted by oldmanwinters

Not sure I follow what you mean.

Don't you remember the comics section of NinjaTurtles.com where he wrote a synopsis for every issue?

[oldmanwinters]

Oh, wow, today is the day the last of the ebay auctions being active:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/mirage-stud...1&_ipg=&_from=

Love the fact that they got the Turtle-spined VHS sets for sale on the last day!


And the original artwork to the last issue of the Archie ongoing comic!