Turtle

Thanks! It was good catching up with you. It had been too long.

The event was indeed a small room. It was basically 3 short rows and a little alcove for Kevin Eastman's table. I slightly cut off the Steve Lavigne table to the left of the first picture, but outside of that, this was the whole show floor: It was wall-to-wall TMNT everything there. Such a fun show! I grabbed a few pictures of artists working on my jam as well: This last image is Chris Allan. If anyone remembers, I met him at the TMNT double feature at the Drive-In last summer. He is local to me and was set up as a guest artist for the event. I was able to connect him and Ralph and was very happy to learn they worked something out. I guess it has been a long time since he was set up at a traditional con and he seemed to stay busy all weekend. Finally, I was able to add a couple more signatures to my TMNT Compendium: What an awesome show!

I don't know the answer, but @rich_TMNT is a member here. I think he plans on making these available where he sets up the negatives for display. Only he can answer if they'll be available elsewhere.

This is correct. There are 5 variants of this. Eastman has the 3 linked above. They are all using the “10 seconds later” cover he originally used for an SDCC exclusive years ago. Rich has one that uses the same cover as the original from 1984. This is as close to a 1:1 reprint of the first issue as you’re going to get. Print run was 10,000 if I remember correctly. Jetpack had a variant that was like Rich’s but it used a black and white cover instead of a red one and it has the Jetpack logo on the back. Print run is 2,500 on this.

I'm sure I'll have more pictures soon, but I need to crash. Before I do, I figured I'd share my big treasure from the show. I created a show-specific jam and got 14 artists in attendance to fill it out. No-prize to anyone who can name all the artists:

How on Earth do we keep missing each other? I didn't realize you'd be at the show. We'll meet up face-to-face someday.

I played Ninja Gaiden endlessly as a kid. I could pretty reliably limp my way to the final boss, but still have NEVER beaten him. And if you ever die, you're sent so far back it's just demoralizing. These kids and their save states they can use for quick and easy practice just don't know how hard it used to be. I did take my Nintendo to college in the early 2000's and DID finally beat Mike Tyson in Punch Out though.

The show was very busy! The turnout was great. Fun show.

It took 15 years, but I finally got this one done!

Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Volume 1 I've had these books for years now with #2 being the only one I didn't have signed personally. This series featured first appearances for both Rat King and Leatherhead.

I finally bit the bullet and picked up the Leo mech by Heatboys. I'll say that while I've always been a fan of the aesthetics of "mechs", that's really only gone as far as owning transformers and enjoying Pacific Rim. I never really got into Evangelion or the like. All that said, this thing is AWESOME! It's quite large and extremely detailed. A good portion of the outside is cast in metal and many of the joints are good tight metal joints. With so much metal, this thing is heavy. I set it on a scale for one of the pictures and it's over 2 lbs! It has a ton of articulation and the thing about this figure seems to be how customizable it is. It has loads of accessories that can be displayed in a lot of different ways. His main katanas (also metal) have sheathes that can be fastened to his back as shown or placed at his waist like a samurai. He's got dual revolvers that can be holstered at his waist, legs or shoulders. The shield can come apart and serve as armor for his arms or legs. He's got a rifle, another short sword, and some shurikens that aren't in the picture. Plus his stand has a hiding spot for all the extra accessories. The base comes with a built-in stand so you can put him in jumping/flying poses if you wish. The level of detail on this is crazy. I'm pretty sure Michelangelo is out and Raphael will be soon. Still waiting on the news about Donatello. I was just going to check this one out and probably leave it at just the one, but I like this one so much that I'm very likely to pick up the other turtles when I can. I also heard they're working on a Splinter. I'll have to check that out too.

Great to see you around again!

I've had MANY deals with ChadH in the past. Most of these transactions were in the time he was active "5/6" years ago he alluded to, which includes selling him the very Silver Turtlemania that brought this whole thing up. The most recent transaction was very recent...in the last month. In all scenarios, the transactions went off without a hitch. That said, this was disappointing to watch play out. Based on his posts here lately looking to sell things to clean out his room, I tend to believe what he said. He posted the Turtlemania book here, it didn't sell immediately, and then he listed in on ebay. I can't square why he posted that it was sold here and didn't immediately take it off ebay. I can speculate, but it's immaterial at this point. The flippant reaction to double-selling it was the disappointing part. I believe there was no malice or intent to scam involved...mostly carelessness when it comes to listing rules. I am glad to hear that he reached out to Ryan and apologized. Between that and the Hero Initiative donation, that sounds much more like the Chad I've dealt with recently and in years past. I wish he would have started with that, but at least he did it. Based on my personal history with him and the fact that Ryan seems at peace with all this, I'm ok with Chad. This was a bad situation that could have been handled better, but I don't think he's a bad guy. Just my unsolicited

Nice! The artist for that story, Chris Allan, just got announced as a guest for the Portsmouth Mini Con in April. Are you going?

I really like the Ultimate Collection line of TMNT Hardcovers. They're a nice, easy way to read the stories and I like the way they compile them. For anyone that knows Volume 1, the main story is pretty spread out and punctuated by "guest issues". The Ultimate Collection books keeps storylines together and groups guest issues together where it makes sense. Then Volume 6 collects a ton of short stories that were originally printed as backup stories in other books. I try to get these books signed when I can. Here's what I have so far: Volume 1: Volume 2: Volume 3: Volume 4: Volume 5: Volume 6: Volume 7:

Saturday! You?

Michael Dooney just got added to the PMC40! I'm hoping for Dan Berger to show up as well. He was just at the Great Lakes Comic Con and he is considering it, but really hates flying. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

I considered it, but decided against it since they didn’t contribute any art to the actual piece. This was all done by Mirage Artists minus the co-creators themselves.

The items that take a long to to get/finish are always the most exciting to me. This is one of those. This is a print done in the late 80's by the Mirage Studios artists minus Eastman and Laird showing the turtles and many of the supporting cast at the time. I love the way the different styles come together in one piece. The print itself is quite limited. In fact, I believe there are 2 versions of it with this one being the more common of the two. Anyway, my goal was to get this one signed by all the contributing artists. I've been slowly adding to this for years and today I finally have it finished: Left to right, there's Steve Lavigne Dan Berger Ryan Brown A.C. Farley Eric Talbot Jim Lawson Michael Dooney

There will undoubtedly be witnesses there. I'm sure a few will step forward. If we're about a month out from the show and you haven't found anyone to help, feel free to send me a PM and I'm sure I'll be able to find a way to help. Prices for the grading can be found on the website. It's roughly $41 per book + handling and shipping. Facilitator fees are on top of that. If you haven't already, you should sign up for a CGC account. When you're ready to get your book signed, find a witness/facilitator and have them watch your book getting signed. Once it's signed, they will take possession of the book as the chain of custody needs to remain unbroken in order to qualify for Signature Series.

To be clear, he was just showing his sketchbook. He made it very clear that the sketches inside were not for sale. He also had a great Groo one by Sergio Aragones.

Stan Sakai held an ebay live event last night for Valentine's day. At some point in the stream, he showed off a personal sketchbook of his where he got some sketches in the 80's from some notable artists. Among them were some truly excellent examples of early TMNT, one by Peter Laird and one by Kevin Eastman. The inscription on Kevin's seems to indicate that it was from the first time he met Stan. Very cool! I took screen captures of the screen and figured I'd share. They're awesome!

Farley's covers are so good! Matt Banning made a random appearance at NYCC and he was only a few tables away from Kevin Eastman. It was a good opportunity to get both of them. I believe this is Matt's first professional work in comics.

Granite State has become my favorite show of the year. This will be my 3rd year going and while it's not technically a TMNT-con, it's definitely very TMNT-centric. It's terrific and I'd recommend any TMNT fan to go. The Portsmouth Mini Con seems like it's aiming to be a different kind of event. With limited tickets and a small venue, they are looking to be a bit different than a normal con. Even their website says it's a "limited intimate boutique celebrity event". I'm intrigued.

While the front cover to the Raphael 1-shot (1st appearance of Casey Jones) is classic in its own right, the back cover has always been more appealing to me.