This one is from a July 10, 1984 letter to Mom and Pop:
"This Thursday or Friday I should be getting 6000 more "Turtles" back from the printer. Maybe I'll try to get Chris to help me drive them to the house. Once they're here, I have to start packaging and shipping them to the wholesalers who have preordered their books. That's another reason I am glad that I am done with my drawing work for the moment, because I want to get these in and out as soon as possible. I do not want to have to move several thousand "Turtles" to Sharon!
Kevin and I are trying to get started on #2 of TMNT, but it's kind of hard to do that with him working in Ogunquit. We were supposed to get together on Wednesday last week (his one day off) but he got involved in some extra work and couldn't make it down. We're hoping to get it together this Wednesday, but who knows."
[That 6000 copies of TMNT #1 mentioned here was the second printing of that issue -- something we'd had no idea we'd be doing about two months after the first printing... we were quite worried that we'd be sitting on copies of the first printing for a long time. But they went fast!
And it really was a good thing that Jeannine and I did not have to haul lots of unsold copies of that second printing to Sharon. because as I recall, the U-Haul truck we'd rented for that moved was stuffed to the gills with our belongings -- I don't think we could have fit in another single box of TMNT comics.
It's interesting to read that we were already trying to work on issue #2 of TMNT even before we moved to Sharon. I suppose the obvious (and surprising to us) success of the first issue emboldened us to think people wanted more Turtles.
I guess they did! -- PL]
I notice you keep mentioning Kevin had the lobster cooking job at the restaurant, but were you not working any other type of job while working on the early TMNT comics?
ReplyDeleteI was still doing freelance illustration, though never as much of it as I wanted to. Of course, when the Turtles took off and we started selling lots of copies of the comics, I no longer really had any time to do freelance work.
DeleteI'm not complaining. -- PL
It's interesting to read from the 'rough time' when you were vastly engaged to establish TMNT as a comic franchise. And I can truly reconstruct the fact that this effort was even hardert because you project was not a singular business but a collaboration.
ReplyDeleteAnd, before I forget, here's my third try relating to my TMNT-related blog article. I would really appreciate it, Mr. Laird, if you could take notice of it. I'd like to quote myself at this point:
"Dear Mr. Laird,
I recently approached Dan from Mirage Licensing to ask him for the best way to make contact with you. He promised me to redirect my request to you, but he also suggested that I should communicate it via the comment section of your blog.
The reason is an article on my own blog about the Turtles and how they influenced my childhood and probably my relationship to popcultural media in general. Those four green individuals also forged my - I guess we can call it - 'passion' for the turtle as an animal. A certain linguistic incident involving my former English teacher is also a part of this article.
So, to cut a long story short, I would like to ask you and I would really appreciate it, if you are interested in sharing this article about the Turtles via your blog. Currently the article is online only in German, but I would consider it an honor to translate it into English for the sake of your international readers. And the Turtles, of course ;D.
So, if you are interested in my suggestion and you would like to hear more (I can surely elaborate on this), I would be delighted."
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!! Best gift of the year I got the itinerary I'm coming up for FCBD!!!!!!
ReplyDelete~ A very excited Mel~