Sunday, December 28, 2014

Snippets #23: November 27, 1984


       This is from a November 27, 1984 letter to my brother Don:

       "Speaking of "Turtles", you will note that this envelope contains a small surprise. Aren't they just too cute to live? I got these samples in the mail today, and I love 'em! They also sent us a hand-painted set that looks really nice. It's great… this is quite a unique experience for me, seeing actual toys made from characters that I had a hand in creating. Maybe I can get them to do a Fugitoid figure…!

       Yesterday I finally brought the artwork for TMNT #2 to the printer and told him that we wanted 10,000 copies. Well, last night I got a call from one of our distributors and he informed me that rather than the 1000 copies he originally ordered, he now wants 3000! And maybe more! I told him that I wasn't sure if we would have enough copies to fill that order, and he suggested that he would prepay us so that we could have more printed -- if he could get a 70% discount (as opposed to the 60% discount we usually offer). I thought about it overnight, and this morning I called the printer and asked him if it was too late to up the print run to 15,000 copies. He said no, it wasn't too late, so now we have 15,000 copies in the works. AAAIIIEEEE!!!! In a couple of weeks from now, I'm going to be plenty busy packing and shipping these things out."

       [As you might guess, the "small surprise" mentioned in the first paragraph was one of the first sets of samples we'd gotten from Dark Horse Miniatures of the miniature lead TMNT figures, one of our first (self) licensed deals for a TMNT product. I remember being blown away by how cool those things were.
       And they DID do a Fugitoid figure! -- PL]

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