Almost 40 years ago, Kevin Eastman co-created the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with Peter Laird. What started as a fun illustration of Michelangelo quickly transformed into a global phenomenon as the four mutant brothers jumped out of the original black and white comic books to take over the planet with cartoons, toys, video games, movies, and so much more. After all these years, the turtles seem as popular as ever, and Paramount is currently developing multiple projects featuring the four heroes. But it all started with the comics, and that's where Kevin Eastman finds himself once again.
Eastman has been working closely with IDW Publishing on its impressive run of TMNT comics, including The Last Ronin, a tale 30 years in the making. This comic was an undeniable success for the publisher, selling a massive amount of copies at the distributor level and receiving overwhelming praise from critics and fans. More of the "Ronin-verse" is on the way with the recently announced prequel The Lost Years. CBR caught up with the iconic creator for an in-depth chat about the upcoming series and a look back on the legacy of the franchise. From being inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Awards Hall of Fame this year at San Diego Comic-Con International to explaining why the 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie will always be the best one. Eastman generously chatted for 35 minutes about everyone's favorite Heroes in a Half-Shell.
CBR: Thank you for co-creating the Ninja Turtles a few decades ago. I'm sure you hear it at every single convention you go to, and you've heard it thousands of times by now, but I grew up in the '80s. Turtlemania played a huge role in my life.
Kevin Eastman: [laughs] Well, thank you. First and foremost, it really was a passion project. You know, much like you, both Peter [Laird] and I were very, very inspired by all the legends that came before us and inspired us and created that obsessiveness to want to be a comic book writer/storyteller/everything. So it's really great that we've been able to carry it along, following the footsteps of people that we admired. To be approaching 40 years of drawing turtle comics and still getting up and sitting over there and drawing, especially turtles, and still loving it is quite a blessing. And it's your fault. So thank you. [laughs] I wouldn't have such a great job if I didn't have such great fans. So it's really appreciated.
And speaking of legends and people that inspire you in the industry, this was a big San Diego [Comic-Con] for you, not only because you guys got to announce another comic in the Ronin-verse and had all the video games to celebrate, but the Eisners, man! How'd that feel?
They're all day-drinkers, apparently. So that's the voting process. No, I'm kidding. It was one of those things that was quite unexpected when they first nominated me, and then as I looked at that list... More than half the people on the list are people that inspired me originally, so it felt kind of uncomfortable. [laughs] Too soon to be on that list! But I appreciate everyone that voted. The first place first time I ever met Will Eisner was Comic-Con and Jack Kirby. It's one of the few venues... 37 years this year, you know, counting that two missing COVID years, like all of us, but I've been going to it every year, and then it feels like home and now living here in San Diego. It's awesome. So what a treasure and what an honor and quite humbled, to be honest, but it was nice. It was really nice.
That is extremely humble of you. But for what it's worth, I think it's very well deserved. What you and Peter created a few decades ago became a global phenomenon that inspired so many different incarnations of the franchise, and it all goes back to that source material that you guys created.
Well, that was one of the cool things. I was able to thank [Peter Laird] in my acceptance speech. I didn't do it alone for sure and couldn't have done it without Peter, and then Jack Kirby inspired us both, so it was great to dedicate that award to him as well. It's funny getting an Eisner and dedicating it to Jack Kirby because Eisner and Kirby were friends. They used to work together back in the day. So I didn't think it was inappropriate. It was awesome either way.
The Last Ronin and your original work took a lot of inspiration from Frank Miller's work with Daredevil. I'm just wondering, have you ever had a conversation with Frank about that? Did you guys get a chance to talk to the Eisners?
No, no, we didn't. I've had the good fortune of meeting Frank a number of times over the years. And he was always more than gracious and more than honorable. We've never really talked about turtles. At some point, he thought the dedication and the influences were what kind of cool then I think he probably got annoyed [laughs] at some point like, "Ughhh, turtles. Oh, geez." You know, almost like, "Look what I started." But no, actually, he's a legend. He was very inspirational.
The first issue of turtles is dedicated to Jack Kirby and Frank Miller with great sincerity because it was about the time that... Growing out of comic books in that Comic Code Authority sort of approved landscape, [comics] were becoming a little more juvenile. Before I discovered Heavy Metal, along comes Frank Miller, and he starts writing stories. And I was a huge Daredevil fan long before Miller came onboard. Daredevil was one of my original all-time favorite characters. And suddenly, there's someone that's writing comic books for adults and writing for me. I thought, you know, it was writing for stuff that I wanted to read, and it was challenging and well done, and intellectual and complex stories. I said, "Comics can be for everybody." Comics can be for people, fans, [and] kids of all ages, if you will.
You know, it's funny, I've actually wondered what it would be like to interview Frank Miller sometime. I'd like to chat with him, even if it's not to be recorded or anything like that. But just to have a chat -- a proper chat. And if he'd like, take a swing at me if he wanted to!
It's funny that you say that because when we were done with the recording, I was going to pitch you on a potential series of creators interviewing creators, and that was one that I would love to do. I would love to read or watch that either way. I think that'd be a great talk.
That would be awesome. I would probably be a nervous wreck, but it's something I'm definitely interested in doing.
That would be so fun. So, talking about everything that inspired your work... The Last Ronin is finally out there. How does it feel to see the series be so well received by fans and critics now that the full story's out there?
I probably overuse the word "humbling." But it was one of those things that when Pete and I originally came up with a story, the content of the story back in 1987, it was at a time when we had wrapped up a number of very large story arcs early in the turtles comics. And we were like, where do we go from here? And we decided to look 30 years down the road, which in '87, it was 2017, which was very odd for a number of reasons reflective of the here and now. We said, "let's look 30 years down the road and come up with that final story. What's the final story that will give us a lighthouse to navigate towards?" And then, that's literally the year the toys started. The cartoon started, and everything really took off. And suddenly, we weren't drawing comic books 90 hours a week and doing business 10% of the time. It was the complete opposite. So that story got pushed to the side and never was accomplished.
So, the incredible and incredibly gifted Tom Waltz and the whole team at IDW... we were looking down the road towards issue 100. And Tom and I were discussing where do we go after issue 100. And there were a lot of ideas being thrown around, and I dusted off this story that Pete and I had written. It was about 20 pages, and [I] said, "I'd like to develop this further, and if you think it's something once I play with it a little bit, let's join forces and adapt it into something set 20 years in the future for the turtles." But it would be a Dark Knight approach and again, thank you, Frank Miller. It wasn't beholden to one particular turtles universe. It was a universe unto itself but also very strongly and firmly rooted in the original Mirage series.
So the first issue is the first story, this one being the last one in that Mirage universe. And yeah, so you know, Pete basically gave us a thumbs up to do what we wanted with it. We worked for about a year before we started the process of bringing on the incredible Escorza brothers, the fantastic Ben Bishop and Luis Antonio Delgado. The whole team came together quite by accident. It was one of [those] "It's meant to be" kind of things, but what an adventure, what a ride. Working with Tom, I have such huge respect, he wrote 100 issues with turtles in a row, and they're brilliant. Instead of him in the driver's seat and me in the passenger's riding shotgun, we just switched seats for a while. And the work was a lot like how Pete and I used to work. We had a pretty decent treatment.
Throughout the layouts, the story came together, and all the rest of the pieces fit. But man, what a tough story... A tough nut to crack, and it had to be perfect. And we appreciate all the fans for waiting because, you know, Tom and I were literally polishing dialogue on a Sunday night before it went to press on Monday, that kind of stuff. What a fantastic journey. And we're more than thrilled it was received that well.
It was definitely a success. And thankfully for fans, we're getting more of that. The press release at San Diego called it "the expansion of the Ronin-verse." I would love to hear more about the story behind The Lost Years. What's it like building that? Has this always been the plan, or was the reception to The Last Ronin so strong that you guys were like, "Yeah, there's another great story in here that we can tell?"
Exactly. Initially, it wasn't the plan. But the plan was as we work through the story, especially with the Escorza brothers sequences, which are the here and now sort of sequences, and then Ben was doing the flashbacks. Each time we did one of the flashbacks, we put more pieces of the puzzle together as the whole complete vision came together, we just started seeing these opportunities where, "Holy smokes, we could do this, this is really great. If we ever get a chance to, it'd be great to go back and mine a little bit deeper on this section or that section." For The Lost Years, in particular, there was this period in the story when Michelangelo goes to Japan and finds out what happened there. He goes on a journey, which is about 16 years before he comes back to New York -- the lost years -- and so, this is sort of what happens during that time.
It's a time of transition for Mikey. I had always known Michelangelo was going to be that. Again, I keep trying not to give spoilers, but I'm assuming a lot of people have read it! But yeah, the first turtle born -- you know, the first turtle drawn -- the first turtle born was always going to be the final. It's his transitional journey from what he had to become and step up to complete the mission. So that's pretty exciting. Probably by the time we got to issue three, we'd really fallen in love with this idea of what happened during that time, and [we] put a pin in it and said, "Let's go back there."
We had very early on said, "This is going to be an opportunity to create another segment of the turtles multiverse." Every comic character has had multiverses, and for us with the turtles, from the black and white comics to the animated series to live action, and now this Ronin-verse, we felt there are more stories we can tell here given the opportunity. That's finding the right story and having the opportunity to tell it. So it really came together wonderfully. So we got some great ideas, and I'm pretty excited about The Lost Years.
The Last Ronin hardcover was recently released. Obviously, a trade paperback will be released as well. Is there any hope that we'll eventually get like a deluxe edition with more bonus features with a greater look at layouts, the script, and stuff like that?
Yeah, I'd love that. I'm a big fan of that DVD craze when they were just loaded with extras. A great example is being a Lord of the Rings junkie. Each time Peter [Jackson] would put out another version, I'd watch it all. I loved the director's commentary. I loved behind the scenes. I like seeing and hearing how the stories come together -- the happy accidents. I love that history, and there's just tons of it, from the original documents that Pete and I wrote, to my mockups on those, to some of the original drafts before Tom and I got to layouts for the entire series. What was fun and really challenging was working with two different art teams and two different time periods.
IDW, if you're watching this, please release a deluxe edition of The Last Ronin. I'm sure many fans will throw their money at it.
Just to flatter IDW further because I've got stacks of their artisan editions. They do such a great job not only with the turtles library, but with preserving so many great artifacts. I mean, there's a Frank Miller artisan edition laid out right there [laughs, points at desk]. Sometimes when you get stuck, you need to look at Klaus Janson and Frank Miller's amazing work on Daredevil to get inspiration. They do a great job, and I look forward to working with them on an expanded edition.
Throughout the years, the turtles have crossed over with a lot of properties. We got a few volumes of crossing over with Batman, and they, of course, teamed up with the Ghostbusters and the Power Rangers. I'm sure there are a lot of legal reasons behind it, but I'm always shocked that they never have teamed up with Daredevil, it seems like the most obvious one. So maybe one day Marvel and Disney will be open to it. And maybe one day we'll get to see some cool art from you on the covers?
That would definitely be a dream crossover. It's funny because the Batman crossover actually evolved out of my pitching one of my all-time favorite comic book characters: Kamandi, the last boy on Earth. That was my jam, Jack Kirby's Kamandi. I grew up in a really small town in Maine, where I felt like I was the last boy on Earth. Plus, the first movie I ever saw in movie theaters was Planet of the Apes. So I always thought a turtles Kamandi crossover would be perfect, and I pitched that through IDW to DC, and the response from Dan DiDio was basically, "Well, that's a fun idea, but not a lot of people know who Kamandi is. Why don't you do a turtles Batman crossover?" And we were kind of like, well, we didn't know that was on the table! [laughs]
So then it just came together like Christmas morning. It was James Tynion who put together this absolutely brilliant script and my best bud Freddie Williams, his work on it was brilliant. Getting to be part of that and drawing covers for that series [with the] turtles and Batman on the cover was mind-blowing.
Freddie and I talk about a lot of things we'd like to do together, and we recently did an Elektra story. That was like a toe in the door! We were like, "Can we put Daredevil in the background of something?" but wanted to save it. Tom and I have talked about what writing something like that would be. We have some ideas, and Freddie and I would like to work together on it. So me, Tom, and Freddie love that dearly, a turtles Daredevil [crossover]. These things come together when they're supposed to -- if they do. If not, we'll draw it on our own and put it out there! [laughs] Hopefully, one day, so fingers crossed. That would be quite something, and I'd really like that.
What do you think it is about the 1990 movie that allowed it to be such a classic for turtles fans?
The success of that was [director] Steve Barron, Todd Langen, who wrote it, and Jim Henson's Creature Shop, who brought it to life. Steve Barron, as the driving force, really read and loved the original black and white comics, and he completely understood the animated version of the turtles. He came up with that perfect blend of both worlds, adapting both visions so that you had a movie that has since never been replicated properly, which is unfortunate. But he came up with that perfect balance of a story written with a heart and a soul that wasn't insulting to the adults that had to sit through it, to the original comic book fans, the original black-and-white comic book fans, who were older fans, so they didn't really embrace the kids' version of the turtles. So when you watch that movie, you could see your turtles, if you will, and the kids could see the antics and the humor and all that stuff from the cartoon series. So it was just a perfect storm, and we were lucky that we had Steve and Todd, who worked on The Wonder Years.
Steve picked out the Leonardo one-shot [and] Issues 10 and 11 out of the original black and white series, and you can see the basic structure of the story there. Then Todd really [brought] this wonderful heart and family relationship together, and the stuff that bound it together so wonderfully. The ultimate was Jim Henson's costuming. The things that they had to create and invent to make those things work -- to bring them alive -- because if you didn't buy into them, if you didn't believe them, it just would have never worked at all. That was Steve's doing. He had a relationship with Jim.
That will always be the favorite for all the right reasons. A lot of fans love the first one the most. A lot of them like the second one, The Secret of the Ooze. I liked it, but I got back to what Pete and I had an issue with back in the day, which was you didn't need to make it more like the cartoon because it was such a great balance of having both, but they really felt they needed to make it more like the cartoon; cut down on these weapons, cut down this, up the humor. We pushed hard for Bebop and Rocksteady to be brought in because it was really popular, you know, originally inspired by the role-playing game in the cartoon series. Then we said, "Well, you know, the Turtles universe is expanding." But it was just it was done too fast. They wanted to get to the box office within a year. And I think given another year, it could have been even cooler. But that whole series was a lot of fun. But the first one will always be the one. I'd like to mention too [that] Kevin Munroe's 2007 animated one was really great. I thought he did a good job. My favorite and one of the things that brought back the turtles to a younger audience is Ciro Nieli and the guys that did the 2012 Nickelodeon animated series.
I had known Ciro before he got that series. He's such an absolute sweetheart, and he'd call me Obi-Wan. He'd say, "Obi-Wan, come to the studio! See what we're doing!" So I'd go and see the stuff he was doing, and he really did the same approach [as] Steve Barron. He had the original Mirage covers on the wall and a lot of the Mirage stories. So he was able to create a new universe, picking from multiple turtle universes and bits that he likes. So there were episodes that I thought were super twisted, which I loved, but he was putting stuff in there for that original audience and those older audiences and running stuff that was... you know, Michelangelo doing, all the Greg Cipes Michelangeloisms, but there was stuff that was in there for the older fans. When it wrapped just after five seasons, I kind of wish it had continued longer because I think there was a lot more material to mine. But I think, in the minds of the corporate structure, they figured that anybody that started watching it when they were five, was now 10 years old, and they've moved on to something else. So it was time to reinvent it. But yeah, that series was awesome.
Three decades later, how does it feel to see turtlemania has never really died down? At San Diego, you were promoting the Cowabunga Collection, Shredder's Revenge recently dropped, and there are new projects in the works at Paramount. A long time ago, you and Peter just had fun making a new creation, and now it's taken over the planet and had such a huge impact on so many people's lives.
It's a journey you could never have imagined. It's like having a childhood dream and then having it come true. Our childhood dream was -- I speak for both Pete and I -- in 1985 when we started drawing comics full time. We felt, for as long as it would last, if it was, you know, another two issues, or three issues or four issues, we were following in the footsteps of our hero[es], like Jack Kirby and so many others that paved the way.
So we'd accomplished the goal, and the dream had come true. And the fact that we get to see it go so much farther than that, through a lot of transitional things, and learn all the different aspects of managing your own property, which is something that our heroes and people that inspire us most often did not have that opportunity to direct the future of the characters, their creations, and as well as profit from them. And so what an incredible journey that has gone on long as it has. Every year that it would continue was another year that we continue with another head-scratcher like, "Wow, this is amazing!"
Then fast-forward to the 2012 series after kind of a resting period. They never went fully away, but they were resting over there. When that 2012 series came back, right around the same exact time that IDW invited me back into the comic series they just got the license for, and Playmates was back doing toys. It was just a relaunch. It was one of those hail marys. It's either gonna work or it's not, and the fans came out. The original fans came out in a big way. Suddenly, there's a whole new generation of fans that are discovering it. Courtney [Eastman] and I do a lot of shows. We were doing about 15, 16 shows a year before COVID, and we'll get back up to that eventually. But it was seeing suddenly, it wasn't just someone that had discovered the cartoon show, and they were five or six years old and reliving and loving that memory and all that it meant to that person at that age. But now, his family is coming together, all dressed as the turtles. The mom, dad, and the kids are all dressed up.
It's a process of accepting it. Working on the comics at IDW, a lot of the artists and writers that we work with grew up as fans. I'd meet some of these young people, and they say, "Oh, I grew up reading your comic books, and now you're the reason I'm drawing comics now." [I'm] so grateful because that was the same thing I said to Jack Kirby, but then at the same time, you can't switch that role. I can't put myself into that mentor category. I already placed Kirby and Corbin and these guys on this pedestal, but once you process that, you say, "What an incredibly kind thing to say, and whatever got you to draw or write or want to pursue this as a career -- if that was the one that inspired that then thank you very much." I know how much that meant to me and how lucky I was to say that to Kirby. Kirby was great and said, "Just keep drawing kid!" I was like, "Okay, Mr. Kirby!" Much like getting an award like the Eisner or still being able to do this, I hope I get to continue earning it because I'm having a really really good time. [I'm] Loving what I'm doing. I love drawing comics, and when I hang up, I'm gonna go back to writing out some of The Lost Years' stuff. We have meetings with Tom this week, and this cover is due. And I'm sure that there are probably multiple texts from IDW going, "Where's the cover for #132?!" But those are nice problems to have. Thanks for all your support and to all the fans, Cowabunga! Thank you.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin is on sale now, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin - The Lost Years goes on sale this November.