rich_TMNT Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 Anybody else reading anything TMNT-related? I've recently started reading cereal:geek (which is a UK 80's cartoon-themed magazine). Every issue has a wealth of fun 80's cartoon stuff and there's great TMNT stuff inside nearly every issue. There are currently only 14 issues but the earlier issues (esp. 1-3) are difficult to find. I've not yet read issues #2 or #3 yet since I can't find them. Just this weekend I finished reading all the issues I own and documenting the TMNT content on my website in case you're interested. I've really enjoyed the magazine but it only gets like one or two issues published per year (if that). Kinda sad that I don't have any more to read at the moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oakman29 Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 Does anyone have any info on the TMNT #1 2009 error? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
comiconxion Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 The Silver Turtlemania wasn't mine, but it did seem to go for a strong price. Congrats to the winner. The piece I'm offering through ComicLink is the Gobbledygook #1 prototype. Although I believe Kevin and Peter still have copies in their files, I think this is the only one that made it into public hands. So, it's even rarer than the Turtlemania Golds and is an interesting part of early Turtles history! Not sure if people on this list noticed, but those that like the rarest of the rare of Turtles collectibles, I decided to let the following piece go from my collection. I purchased it from Kevin a few years back and comes with a COA from him. http://www.comiclink.com/auctions/item.asp?back=%2Fauctions%2Fpreview%2Easp%3Fcode%3D2015feb%26pg%3D10%26x%3D0%26y%3D0%23Item_1044524&id=1044524 I hope the piece finds a good home with someone here. Best of luck to those who bid! Well I hope your Stellar Silver Edition found a happy Turtle home:) I thought I might be the proud owner of it, but I was outbid in the final flurry:( Hopefully though, another fellow TMNT Boardie acquired it:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan. Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 Does anyone have any info on the TMNT #1 2009 error? A good summary here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMNT Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 Not sure if people on this list noticed, but those that like the rarest of the rare of Turtles collectibles, I decided to let the following piece go from my collection. I purchased it from Kevin a few years back and comes with a COA from him. http://www.comiclink.com/auctions/item.asp?back=%2Fauctions%2Fpreview%2Easp%3Fcode%3D2015feb%26pg%3D10%26x%3D0%26y%3D0%23Item_1044524&id=1044524 I hope the piece finds a good home with someone here. Best of luck to those who bid! What a neat piece of history you are parting with. Thank-you for the heads up - sharing this. I wish you the best of luck on the sale and it finding a proper TMNT loving home. (Danny ) Naw, won't be me. I thought about back when Kevin was originally selling it but at the time I was funneling all spare cash into OA and that's basically where I'm still at. Definitely a cool piece of early Mirage Studios history, good luck Chuck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMNT Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 2015 is off to a great start for my TMNT collection. I hope to have some new acquisitions to show off within the next week. In the mean time, I'm reading a few of the TMNT: The Classics TPB's that my family got for me for Christmas. It's cool seeing some of the less mainstream issues get reprinted. Anybody else reading anything TMNT-related? Can't wait to see what you got! Next month, with the new IDW collection hardcover coming out, will actually be my first IDW purchase. So hope to have some nice reading coming up soon! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turtle Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 Does anyone have any info on the TMNT #1 2009 error? A good summary here. I've grown to somewhat dislike the error variant of the 2009 Color Special...or more accurately, the way it's perceived. Initially, it was sent out to retailers as this was the last issue released by Mirage before the announcement of sale of TMNT to Nickelodeon (later Mirage releases were only available through Mirage). People noticed the hatching pattern in the margins on some of the pages and eventually, they sent it back to print to fix the error. I'm still unsure whether or not an actual recall was placed on the book or not, but I saw plenty of retailers still had it on their shelves and Mirage was blowing them out at $1 each for the error variant, cover price for the regular edition. Very few, if any, were "destroyed". That portion doesn't bother me much, but the way the aftermarket has treated this is still weird to me. People latched on to the idea of "OMG an error variant, it must be worth a fortune!" despite the fact that it's nearly twice as common graded as the corrected counterpart. At the time of this writing, there are 77 error variants and 38 corrected variants on the census. Looking at GPA, the error edition reached a high price of $400-$500...the corrected version got as high as $215 even though it's the more scarce of the two. This truly seems like a case of buying the label, not the book. I guess my real issue is that it doesn't feel like an error variant worthy of the prices it commands. Other notable error variants: #3 NYCC Variant - Cool story, tougher to find than the regular edition, difference from regular variant is noticeable from the cover #4 2nd print - Right logo but wrong cover, tougher to find than regular edition, difference from regular variant is noticeable from the cover #1 Jetpack Error - Smaller second batch was reprinted with an orange cover instead of a red cover, tougher to find than the regular edition, difference from the regular variant is noticeable from the cover (this one is the one to watch in my book ) The books listed above all have an interesting story to go with it and were all missing something that was present in the regular release. The 2009 color special error's story is bland. No art was altered, the story didn't change, and the difference, and nothing was missing from the original "error" release. So that's my incredibly biased, completely skewed take on it. I hope it shined some light on the subject. If you're looking for a price range, the error variant is worth roughly 50-100% more than the regular edition. sorrenmj 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
So-CoAddict Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 Signed comics were recently listed on KevinEastmanStudios.com... and I may have just made an impulse buy, while getting ready for work. Woops! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rich_TMNT Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 (edited) The piece I'm offering through ComicLink is the Gobbledygook #1 prototype. Although I believe Kevin and Peter still have copies in their files, I think this is the only one that made it into public hands. So, it's even rarer than the Turtlemania Golds and is an interesting part of early Turtles history! Last year at Shellback Artworks in Wells, ME for FCBD there was a guy with a copy of this that he let me take a look at. If I remember correctly, he was a close family friend and said the copy he had was originally Peter's copy that was gifted to him. I also think he told me (but my memory is a bit fuzzy on this) that he actually was the kid shown on the cover on the man's shoulders giving a high-five to the alien/creature. This guy had the actual picture of that man and the kid inside the comic bag that this book was in. Really a remarkable piece of TMNT history. #1 Jetpack Error - Smaller second batch was reprinted with an orange cover instead of a red cover, tougher to find than the regular edition, difference from the regular variant is noticeable from the cover (this one is the one to watch in my book ) Just for accuracy...the error copies were the orange-ish color. The corrected copies were the deep red. Edited February 10, 2015 by rwhorn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sofistocat Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 The gentleman you spoke of is the little brother of the child on the cover. The family is good friends with the Laird's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rich_TMNT Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 The gentleman you spoke of is the little brother of the child on the cover. The family is good friends with the Laird's Wow, I was pretty darn close, huh? Thanks for clarifying. I knew my memory was a bit fuzzy on that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Icculus308win Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 Pretty neat stuff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sofistocat Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 The gentleman you spoke of is the little brother of the child on the cover. The family is good friends with the Laird's Wow, I was pretty darn close, huh? Thanks for clarifying. I knew my memory was a bit fuzzy on that. Close enough. I hung out with the lil brother on Saturday at Boston last year. Good people... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
comiconxion Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 Thanks for posting that picture... cool to see the origins of the alternate cover and know that there's one other copy out there. Ultimately, it was probably the right thing to use Fugitoid for the cover to the final version of #1, but I wonder if there was another reason they decided not to use the drawing altogether when they published Gobbledygook #1 & 2. They did publish it years later in the 1986 version of Gobbledygook however. The gentleman you spoke of is the little brother of the child on the cover. The family is good friends with the Laird's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turtle Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 #1 Jetpack Error - Smaller second batch was reprinted with an orange cover instead of a red cover, tougher to find than the regular edition, difference from the regular variant is noticeable from the cover (this one is the one to watch in my book ) Just for accuracy...the error copies were the orange-ish color. The corrected copies were the deep red. Hey Rich! You're half-right. This variant is different from the color special in that there was no "corrected" version. The error came a bit later. But yes, the regular edition is deep red, the error is orange. For the Jetpack variant, the error came AFTER the regular edition. I could recant the story, but I'll save some time and cut/paste from my inbox. The rumors are true! Yes, it really does exist! Once again there is another error edition of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Here's the story! As you probably know we have a very long and close history with Kevin Eastman & Peter Laird (don't make me tell you who they are). Peter once published a piece, in the PBBZ TMNT #1 edition, that has a brief outline of that history! Being a very small part of Turtle Lore is something we cling to reverently! Our association with them is an honor to us! When IDW publishing announced that they would be printing the Turtles again we were psyched because we already had a great working relationship with IDW, having produced numerous other variants with them (many of them being from another NH resident - ie Joe Hill, Locke & Key, The Cape). As we started to formulate our plan, for our Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Exclusives, we wanted to produce something that paid homage to Peter and Kevin. Something that was more historical than modernized. The book would already be the modern take on the classic! We wanted to remind everyone of the Turtle’s roots! The first issue was easy. Peter had already created a piece that was a duplicate of the original TMNT #1, but in his own style! It was the perfect piece for the Jetpack Comics first issue. Of course we wouldn’t be able to continue to find images that directly matched up to the original series (are there even going to be Mousers in the new series?) and getting images through the Turtle licensing people would be a hurdle all it’s own! From there it was a matter of us scouring every TMNT resource we could in an effort to locate images that were deserving of being a cover, but had never been used as one. Of course they had to be classic art and not modern! CLASSIC style is what led us to the unique color schemes you see on our covers. The original Turtles 1 through 4 & Raphael were all created using very unique coloring and shading styles ,and the printing process was a whole other animal. Two plus decades later computers have taken over the world. The processes of days passed are no longer used. We explained to IDW that we wanted to have the colors on our covers mimic the colors & coloring style of the originals. It was the best homage we could come up. With little effort (because they are a skillful bunch) IDW was able to present us a coloring style that was reminiscent of those original books. We could not have been happier. The day the Jetpack Comics TMNT #1 arrived was awesome! A van full of new comics and cases upon cases of the Jetpack Edition as well as multiple cases of the regular edition! Orders had been spectacular for the book. Staff was ready to start packing and shipping the hundreds of orders we had received for our Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1. This was our most successful variant before it even arrived at our door! By day 2 TMNT became our best selling comic of all time! As we cracked the cases of books we noticed some very glaring and distinct flaws. The most prevalent was that about every 5th issue had a staple that was not folded. It might sound petty but after being stabbed several times we figured out what the problem was and saw that it created a problem of it’s own. The unfolded staple caused a protruding mark in the front and back cover of the book with the unfolded staple. This, in turn, rubbed ink off the book on top of it and under it. So every one of these mis-stapled books there were damages to 2 others. When all was said and done we estimated about 20% of our print run was damaged It is important that people keep in mind that publishers and printers do not create collectibles. Publishers and printers create for us a form of entertainment. It is the collector and buyer that drive the market for mint condition comics. Supply and demand. The publishers and printers make no claim to provide us all MINT condition comics. Their jobs are to produce the product and put it to paper. Comic books go through a long process and lots of hands before we all get them. Mistakes and problems happen. That is what makes a graded 10.0 comic worth so much. They are few and far between. Being friends with IDW we wanted to inform them of the problem. We made it clear that we were not looking for replacement copies. We simply wanted IDW to be aware and to work with their printer to provide the best possible product they could. It would be too easy to shake down a publisher every time there was a little issue with a print run. There is no way we would damage our relationship with our publishing partners over not perfect comics. There’s an old adage about not being able to fix a problem you are not aware of. We were looking to make IDW and the printer aware of a problem. A few days later we got an email from IDW thanking us for informing them of the problem. They were going to address it with the printer. A few days after that IDW let us know that the printer was going to go back to press and replace the damaged copies. That is generally unheard of in printing. Firing up a massive printer to churn out 400 books is more work for the printer than the cost of printing those 400 books. Printers depend on volume of print run to make printing a profitable business. We were impressed that IDW and the printer thought enough of us to do this. Of course producing such a small quantity on machines designed to produce 100 to 1000 times that quantity would be problematic on it’s own, but who knew at the time! In an effort to get the newly printed books directly to us, the printer had them air freighted half way around the world. We were very excited when the 2 boxes arrived but it was noticeable that such a long, fast trip had been hard on the boxes. Blunted corners & edges of the boxes could only mean similar damage to comics inside. The one group LEAST interested in the condition of any product is the package carrier. Proper packing falls on the person doing the shipping. The carrier just delivers. Of course the damaged boxes were no big deal to us. We hadn’t even requested replacements and the fact that everyone had worked so hard and fast to provide us something we didn’t expect was testament enough to the professionalism of the companies involved. Damaged or not, it didn’t matter to us. Then we opened the boxes. At first it appeared to be a trick of the light. Literally hundreds of florescent lights brighten our store so sometimes things appear off at first glance. Upon further inspection we found it was not so, in this case. Given the fast and short print run there was not enough time to do a full color check. What should have been dark red had been printed in orange! Four Hundred copies of the Jetpack Comics Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 in a distinct color scheme. We’ve provided a side by side below. So, for the third time, and the second time on a first issue, there was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles error edition. The first was with issue #3 of the original series. Kevin and Peter were coming back to NH to set up a show (run by me) and then heading to New York City for another show. TMNT #3 was at the printer, but at the time & through the process they were using, the cover had to be run through the printer twice to get the 2 color tones to print. Kevin and Peter had the printer bind about 350 copies of the book, with the one color on the cover, so they would have product for the 2 shows. You can find this listed in the Overstreet price guide. The TMNT #3 variant is one of the most sought after TMNT comics ever. For the 25th anniversary of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mirage studios produced a color edition of the very first issue, with an all new cover. The same cover used for the PBBZ edition but inked and in color (of course we prefer the raw pencils to the inked version – the pencils are so tight). With in days of it shipping to comic shops it was recalled “to be destroyed” by Mirage Studios. There was an error in the book. While we’ve never had an actual confirmation on what that error was, the noticeable difference between the recalled and the regular color edition #1 is that all the type inside the front cover is in bold, making it very hard to read. This recalled edition sells for $70 or more! There is no confirmation on what the print run was, the qty destroyed or the print run of the corrected edition! And now there is The Jetpack Comics * Orange * error edition! Only 400 of these were printed. We do not believe that a single one of them are mint. We are offering them on a first come basis in three different conditions. Sadly we can’t offer them in a numerical grade of condition. We are offering them based on the amount of time we will spend sorting through them. Since the news broke for this we’ve had dozens of emails and requests. The quantity of them that people want (including offers to but the whole print run) far exceeds the quantity we have available. How will CGC view these? We have no idea! Supposedly printer errors do not 100% count against a books numerical grade but that is up to them, not us! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rich_TMNT Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Hey Rich! You're half-right. This variant is different from the color special in that there was no "corrected" version. The error came a bit later. But yes, the regular edition is deep red, the error is orange. For the Jetpack variant, the error came AFTER the regular edition. Thanks for remembering the details on this. I had totally forgotten about the damaged copies being the catalyst for the reprinted orange copies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sofistocat Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Thanks for posting that picture... cool to see the origins of the alternate cover and know that there's one other copy out there. Ultimately, it was probably the right thing to use Fugitoid for the cover to the final version of #1, but I wonder if there was another reason they decided not to use the drawing altogether when they published Gobbledygook #1 & 2. They did publish it years later in the 1986 version of Gobbledygook however. The gentleman you spoke of is the little brother of the child on the cover. The family is good friends with the Laird's Well, here's another copy for y'all to salivate over. Eastman pulled this out at Fantacon 2013. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
comiconxion Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Was the copy that Eastman pulled out for sale or was that his personal copy still in his collection? I was under the impression there may be three copies - one that Peter owned, one that Kevin still owned and then this "extra" copy that Kevin sold out of his collection. So, it sounds like these are the three? Any others been seen? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sofistocat Posted February 11, 2015 Share Posted February 11, 2015 Personal copy, I think he would've sold it for the right price. I felt fortunate enough to shoot pics and rifle through it, with the utmost care of course... to my knowledge, no. I would say there are a few more out there, but it's just a hunch. If you were going to take the time to, in old school fashion, Xerox each piece of OA by hand, wouldn't you have made more than three copies? Laird seems to have one of everything in his storage unit, I think he would very likely have a 4th copy.... If Kevin had two copies, wouldn't Peter also have two? solely my 2 cents though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nriccijr Posted February 13, 2015 Share Posted February 13, 2015 I don't know if that one pictured is the one shown....but at one of the Shellback signings (I have been to them all) the person in front of me (or maybe a few in front of me) had that book...I had no idea what it was at the time....I just remembered I loved the cover Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
