Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Blast from the Past #350: Sketches for "Ninja T's" softball team

Back in the 1990's -- I think -- Mirage sort of sponsored a local softball team called "The Ninja-T's", mainly because a couple of old friends of mine were on that team. I can't remember right now what the actual terms of the deal were -- we may have just let them use the image of the Turtles on their t-shirts and such.

Anyway, I did a few sketches for possible art to be used on those shirts, and I found these in a sketchbook last week.



Here's an almost-finished drawing of one of the Turtles bearing a baseball bat (maybe he nabbed it from Casey Jones' "bag of tricks").



I seem to recall that this was NOT the finished image that ended up on the shirts, and that I actually did another which was a more action-oriented pose of a Turtle wildly swinging a baseball bat. But I'm not sure. Maybe I'll run across that someday. -- PL

8 comments:

  1. I'd love to score one of those shirts

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  2. Cool, I'd also like to see the finished image if you ever stumble across it =)

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  3. Love to see the shirt or finished product sometime. Great work!

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  4. PL said...
    "Anonymous said...
    Hello Mr. Laird. Will you please find a way to re-print TMNT Collected Book volume 1. Fans all over stiil want it, and I've got a list to prove it.

    http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/tmnt-collected-books/

    Just click on the signatures tab.
    Please Mr. Laird, TMNT fans still want, still NEED this book. Please think about it."

    Anonymous, just so you know, I prefer to respond to people who don't post comments anonymously.

    That being said, I appreciate your -- and other folks' -- interest in seeing a reprint of the early TMNT comics that Kevin Eastman and I did together. I will have to check with Gary Richardson to see if Mirage still has the right to do such reprintings, but I suspect we do not. I could be wrong.

    It is altogether possible that the new owners of the TMNT will see the potential in a series of reprint volumes of the old comics, and do it themselves. I think a nice letter -- or better yet, a battalion of nice letters -- to the appropriate people at Viacom (and I don't know who that would be, exactly) might bring forth salutary results. -- PL

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  5. Thank You Mr. Laird for replying. I have come to you becasue Viacom does not respond. I have tried numerous times to see if they would re-print it but they never reply. I have also contacted Heavy Metal Magazine and they said they would pass the note along to Mr. Eastman, but there's been nothing after that.

    I contacted Mirage first but they said they dont print books anymore because they are in there remping down phase.

    That's why I've come to you Mr. Laird, you are the TMNT fans last hope to try and get TMNT Collected Book Volume One reprinted. So many fans want this book including myself. You should see some of the prices it goes for on Ebay. I just hope that maybe you can help us TMNT fans in some way.

    Thank you Mr. Laird for your time, and all the great things you've done for us fans over the years.

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  6. Sorry about the above. My name is Kyle.

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  7. I love the bottom image. There is such intensity on the turtles face. He is ready to knock it out of the park.
    Thanks for sharing!

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  8. Hi Peter,

    My Dad was on the Ninja-T's softball team! I used to sit on the team bench and cheer you guys on. I remember seeing Kevin and going to the house in the hill town for a pool party. While my dad does not have the softball uniform anymore, we still have our team jackets with original TMNT art work on it. I'm going to the Rhode Island Comic-Con 2018. Kevin Eastman is set to be there and I plan on bringing a jacket. Will you be there? Would love to say hi. Take care!

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