How did a violent indie comic become a $15,000,000,000 franchise?

if you look at a list of the highest grossing media properties of all time you'll see a lot of familiar names that were developed by big companies but down here at number 20 you'll see a 15 billion dollar property that was started by two guys in their 20s with a little Indie comic and I don't mean they drew this comic on behalf of some company they literally sat down in their living room drew it lettered it and with a thousand dollar loan from one of their uncles started their own business to print and sell it so how did this tiny violent black and white comic end up becoming a property Bigger Than The Avengers well as I spent the last few weeks researching that question the story I found was a lot more interesting and ultimately like so many stories of Rapid success sadder than I could have expected so let's head back to 1981. before the toys the movies the TV shows to a 19 year old Kevin Eastman a guy who desperately wants to be a comic artist but is currently stuck boiling lobsters at a restaurant in Maine in his free time Eastman devours all types of comics he especially loves the king himself Jack Kirby but he reads everything from superhero comics to the edge European import heavy metal which we'll come back to later now in his quest to find find all the most interesting Comics he comes across a local self-published comic magazine called scat he likes what he sees so he writes a letter to the guys making it and ends up getting connected with one of Scott's main artists Peter Laird Laird invites Eastman over and what does Eastman see up on Laird's wall a piece of original Jack Kirby art now Laird is eight years older than Eastman but despite the difference in age the two become fast friends bonding over their love of comics and bad TV and because Laird 2 dreams of becoming a comic book artist pretty soon Eastman moves in with Laird Eastman keeps working at restaurants and Lair to scraping by doing illustrations for local gardening magazines and newspapers but they both want to land that big job at Marvel DC or another big comic publisher so they spend their nights hanging out and drawing comics in front of the TV well on one of those fateful comic drawing nights Eastman whips up a sketch to try and make Laird laugh it's a turtle with nunchucks strapped to his arms larg grabs a piece of paper and does his own rendition Eastman gives the drawing a name Ninja Turtle Laird fires back adding Teenage Mutant and it's here in this moment at the very very conception of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that I think we find our first clue as to why they would become so wildly successful the idea wasn't created by some toy executive or marketing Guru it wasn't even created by a work for hire comic artist trying to meet a deadline it was made by two friends who were just trying to make each other laugh of course at this point they have no idea where this little sketch is going to take them but they must have known they had something special because they decided to turn that sketch into a full comic they multiply their little turtle by four give each of them a name based on Renaissance painters and base their personalities on themselves and their friends Donatello is Laird the reserve Tech geek and Eastman is Raphael the wild hot head and this for me is where we see the second key to tmnt's success it's such an odd choice to use your main character design four times but at its core this is a story about friendship the friendship between Eastman and Laird and its mirror in the turtles themselves to fill out the rest of the turtle's origin story they fill the comic with things they love one of the things they love is Daredevil so the turtle's origin story actually happens just out of frame of Daredevil's origin story where the goo that gave Matt Murdoch's Powers drips on a few Turtles and it doesn't stop there Daredevil's Master is stick so of course the turtle study under Splinter Daredevil fights the hand so turtle fights the foot people have called it a parody but I don't think that's really an accurate description it's more just a goofy celebration of the things they love including Jack Kirby to him the structure of the book owes a lot of credit and another crazy thing about these two guys is how they work instead of having one right the other draw or one pencil and the other ink they both sit down next to each other and pass every page back and forth each doing a little bit of the penciling ink and shading so that you can't see who did what on any particular page that's insane it's not how Comics are supposed to work but for these two guys oh man does it work over the course of the 40 page issue they invent so many things that just a few years later would be deeply embedded in Pop Culture The Turtles Splinter the Ooze sewers the Shredder the Foot Clan it's got the wrong exuberance of two guys who are just trying to amuse themselves on each other and with a loan from Eastman's uncle they print 3 000 copies of their comic they name their publishing company Mirage Studios because it's not really a studio at all just two guys in their living room they fully expect they'll have copies of these Comics sitting on their shelves for years to come Eastman goes back to a summer job in Portland cooking lobsters and Laird's wife gets a job in Connecticut so he moves away the roommates split up and go their separate ways only fate had other plans all three thousand issues of TMNT number one sell out so they do a second print run of six thousand more and then all of those sell out they've made enough money to pay Eastman's uncle back and even have a bit left over so Eastman begins busting back and forth from Portland to Connecticut to work on issue 2. it takes them a few months but they finish issue two and sell fifteen thousand copies in the first print run then they reprint issue one and sell 30 000 more copies something's happening they quit their jobs Eastman moves to Connecticut to work on issue 3 which launches with a print run of fifty thousand copies three issues in and they've achieved their dream they are making a living I lead a small living but a living by drawing Comics but for better or worse they have no idea what comes next but before we move on let's take a look at these Comics because there's so much talk about how successful in business Eastman and Laird became that there can be this false narrative that these guys were just really lucky or best or really good character designers what I think people forget is how freaking good these Comics are the energy in these early issues is off the charts there's no editor no boss telling them what they could or couldn't do so they just decide to do whatever they want like in issue three they set out to do the longest car chase in comic history and they do and it works because the staging the geography the pacing of it all of it's absolutely masterful there may be a roughness to some of their drawings but it doesn't stop them from trying to push the comic medium forward I don't know how much manga they had access to at this point but there's a fluidity to the storytelling that really sets it apart from everything else coming out in the 80s and the West not only is the storytelling great but they are channeling their hero Jack Kirby with the pace of invention issue 2 introduces April O'Neil Baxter Stockman the mousers issue 3 as the tcri aliens and in the fourth issue they create Casey Jones by issue five the turtles are in space meaning aliens and robots there's this pure our joy of being able to make a living drawing comics with your buddy that just spills out onto every page and that fun is infectious because soon the Suits start calling Eastman and Larry get approached by a bunch of Licensing agents who promise big TV shows and toy deals but they want exclusivity in these long five-year contracts but Eastman and Larry Savvy they know better than to give away control of their creation and as we'll soon see that will be both a good thing and a bad thing for them but when licensing Agent Mark Friedman shows up and offers him a 30-day non-exclusive deal to prove what he can do they decide to let him take a shot and I want to recognize how the turtles franchise seems to always attract underdogs Mark Freeman was not a big hot shot licensing agent he had to rent a suit and a tie for his meeting with Eastman and Laird and in the 30 days he was given he gets a deal with Playmates Playmates was a doll manufacturer but wanted to challenge Hasbro and Mattel in the action figure space so they were an underdog in their own way too both the toy deal in place they hire an agency to produce a five-episode TV cartoon and unlike if they had worked for DC or Marvel Eastman and Leia are in control of everything and you have to give him credit because these are very receptive collaborators with the toy and animation companies they let them sand the rough edges off their creation adding colored bandanas and pizza removing the violence the grittiness and the kind of phallic looking Tails now Laird had an especially hard time with this but he went along with what these older wiser Executives were telling him and at the end of the day Eastman and Laird agreed that whatever happened with the toys and cartoons they'd always have their black and white comic where they could tell their version of the turtles sadly those would turn out to be the famous last words but we'll get to that first Turtle Mania [Music] [Applause] if it looks truly for you you don't know how to recognize a 350 million dollar a year industry when you see it in case you weren't alive in the late 80s the show and figures turned out to be a huge success they captured the imagination of kids across the country despite all the changes it successfully translated the fun and energy of the comic into cartoon and plastic form and kids were absolutely losing their minds for it the show quickly became the number one kids show airing almost every day of the week and the toys were selling out across the country I think we have to remember the landscape at the time Turtles are situated between the cornball 80sness of He-Man and Thundercats but before the badassness of 90s animation and the anime Invasion it's easy to forget how unique something like the turtles would have been when it came out because so much of what came after it was trying to replicate it the money was falling in Mirage was growing Kevin Eastman bought a tank and the licensing deals kept coming but before we move on I want to look at one of the comics they published during this period because I think it gives us a pretty good insight into where their heads are we're at in it the turtle's downstairs neighbor is none other than Jack Kirby but this Jack Kirby has a magical gem which when attached to his drawing pencil brings anything that he draws into the real world and that must have been exactly how Eastman and Laird felt that moment watching the little drawings from their living room come to life and take over every corner of Pop Culture but that comic doesn't exactly have a happy ending you see Kirby along with Donatello go through a portal to a world populated entirely by his drawings but the drawings attacked them and Kirby has to overcome his artist block to fight back and while he succeeds and Donatello escapes Kirby is trapped forever in the world of his drawings before the portal closes he sends Donatello a note on it is a drawing of a turtle and a quote from one of Jack Kirby's Comics life at best is Bittersweet you see despite all the success their relationship was falling apart they were spending so much time managing the business that they barely had any time to work on the comic book and when they did they'd spent so much time apart that they were creatively on totally different pages and by issue 10 their relationship had gotten so distant and fractured that they're going back and forth Whiting out each other's drawings drawing over them and it took them four months to get that issue of the comic out sadly by this point they've gotten so sick of working together that they couldn't get through a single issue without a lot of unpleasantness and disagreements and as you read these issues you can almost feel them trying to heal their broken relationship they move the Turtles out of New York City to Northampton Massachusetts where they lived the turtles are broken and defeated not on speaking terms with one another each trying to cope with their failure in their own way you can feel the Melancholy and you have to wonder which of them wrote this journal entry for April I also have friends real friends that I care for and that care for me I'll always be there for them and they for me this will probably be my last entry I guess I just wanted some kind of final word sort of wrap up all that I had written so far life is good and life goes on it would be the last issue they worked on together as true collaborators their entire creative partnership had lasted for only 15 issues they would remain business partners but they decide to alternate issues of the comics they wouldn't have to work together and the quality of the comic does suffer pretty dramatically as they start trading off they're not bad Comics per se but there's something that feels forced into just off about the whole thing they do come together for a three-issue run that brings the Turtles back to New York not jamming like they used to but at least they were both involved and some of the spark comes back to the comic but after that they both step away from the comic completely allowing the other members of The Mirage Studio to run the comic while they focus on the business but just as their relationship is breaking down business is picking up a movie is in production a show is on the air toys and video games are launching all the time they're stuck in it together but they want different things Larry wants to slow it down a bit and enjoy all the success they've had but Eastman can't sit still Beyond managing Mirage in the turtles Empire he founds a museum for comic art he starts a second publishing company called Tundra to focus on more mature story time that didn't fit in at Mirage and remember Heavy Metal magazine which was a big influence on him well he buys it and starts running that too Mirage publishes a ton of comics in this period but neither Eastman or Laird have significant involvement they'd aim to become professional comic artists and the rocket ship of success had blasted them right past their dream for issue 50 they come together once more they plan out a 12-ish uark but they only make it one issue working together as collaborators before Eastman leaves again and Laird finishes the series with other artists after that run Laird leaves too they cancel the original turtle's comic after only 62 issues and relaunch a color version written drawn by Jim Lawson but even that version only lasts 13 issues turtlemania is dying down the third movie is a critical failure and plans for a fourth movie are scrapped the hit cartoon Show is canceled and Playmates winds down its toys they even turn the rights of the comics over to image who does a very 90s grim and greedy take on the turtles with no involvement from The Mirage crew they make a final attempt to save the franchise with a live-action TV reboot called the Next Mutation but during development Eastman and Laird have a huge falling out over the inclusion of a fifth Turtle Venus de Mila the show comes out with a fifth Turtle but it was the final straw in their friendship and their partnership and the show is a commercial failure anyway turtlemania was over Eastman wants to move on with his life and he sells his share of the turtles to Peter Laird and walks away from his creation seems he burned a lot of bridges because in an interview a few years later he says he doesn't even talk to anyone from that time and his life and if this story ended there this wouldn't be a 15 billion dollar property it would be a little comic and a crazy toy fad that impacted one generation of kids but the story doesn't end there because after fears of no turtles media at all something interesting happens a new TMNT comic book comes out written by Peter Laird it's black and white and published by Mirage Laird ignores the image run and picks up the story from the last Mirage Comics as if all those years had never happened it's very much the layered version of the turtles which can be a bit jarring if you only know the original show it's very sci-fi and at times very serious and soapy it feels like an honest to God Indie comic again quirky and personal and you can tell Laird is having fun and from there things pick up steam Laird now the sole owner of turtles gets a new show on the air and this time he gets to do it his way that means no Bebop and Rocksteady no goofy gags no mutant of the week and a lot more violence and action and long epic story arcs and people like it Playmates decide to start making toys again Laird works with a movie studio to get another film out in 2007 14 years after the last time Turtles were in theaters and I feel like it's this era that really saved the turtles because Laird came back and once again with a tiny black and white Indie comic proved that the turtles mattered they weren't going to be some 80s novelty they were going to impact generation after generation It's a Great era of turtles media the only thing missing is Kevin Eastman but we'll get back to him Laird claims he'll do the book as long as he's having fun and I guess after a fears he stops having fun because the book slows down after about 30 issues around this time the animated show had run its course and Laird decides the time has finally come he sells the rights to the turtles to Viacom 25 years after their creation for the first time in history neither Eastman or Laird are in control of the turtle's fate but that's not the end of the story either Viacom does a deal with IDW to publish new Turtles comics in a new continuity and who do they hire to write it Tom Waltz but who do they hire to co-write it and do the layouts Kevin Eastman that's right he's back apparently he just needed a good 14-year break to re-energize so now after so many years of the layered version of the turtle we get the Eastman version and guess what it's also really good I'm gonna put a reading guide down below because it really is shocking how many really good Turtles comics there are and it can be overwhelming Eastman even gets involved in Consulting with a new TV show in the new movies obviously in this era the turtles are more ninja-y less sci-fi and man you gotta love all these layouts yet another generation gets to grow up with the turtles in their lives still piloted by one of their co-creators sadly we're still missing Peter Laird honestly he seems to be happy running his blog and making ambivalent comments about the new Turtle stuff getting really into Pottery but it feels like this story is missing and ending I have this parasocial need for these guys to be friends with each other again they gave me so much in my childhood and I feel I owe them that well apparently so did somebody at Netflix for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle episode of the show toys that made us they decide to bring Eastman Lair together again for the first time now that's just marketing BS because they had been together a few times at conventions but man I can't watch this without tearing on we had that window installed yeah I guess our big idea was we each have a drawing table next to the window I'd be in the other room you'd be here yep and we literally pass Pages through the window it never happened no that moment that pause when they both look at what could have been the life unlived where they had a lot less money a lot less Fame but got to spend their lives drawing comics with their friend passing the pages back and forth but that's not the end of this story either because shortly after that meeting the new turtles book comes out and look who it's credited to Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird it seems that sometime after that meeting Eastman dug through some old boxes and found an outline for a turtle's graphic novel that he and Laird had drafted during the golden years of their collaboration in the late 80s but never got to make into a reality because their success distracted them with Laird's blessing Eastman expands the outline into a five-ishy series and it's probably the closest thing we'll get to a new Eastman and Laird collaboration interestingly it ignores all the continuity from the imagerun Laird's run Eastman's run erasing all those years of strife and Discord and serves as a direct continuation of and conclusion to their original collaboration and of course the magic was back and it was a huge success and the plot of that comic it follows the last surviving turtle in his final struggle against the Foot Clan lonely and haunted by guilt and remorse and the memory of his lost friends as he lays their weapons down to rest one final time he says I miss my brothers so much thank you guys so much for watching I hope you enjoyed this episode and if you did please hit the like And subscribe buttons and leave a comment down below thanks so much and I'll see you soon

Channel: matttt

Views: 2,076,373

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Id: TMDp9T_4bDs

Length: 17min 0sec (1020 seconds)

Published: Wed May 17 2023