"The Marvel Method"

This post isn't about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but it is about comics, so I figured "Close enough!". Maybe I'll post it on my other blog, too.

I was in Barnes and Noble last week doing my weekly "check out the new magazines" thing, when my eye fell on the cover of a new issue of "Comic Heroes" magazine. 

Nothing about the contents, at least from the cover, immediately appealed to me, so I went to the table of contents, where I saw that inside was a story about the famous "Marvel Method" of creating comics.

I was skimming the article when I noticed a familiar illustration -- a self-portrait by Jack Kirby (inked, I think, by Vince Colletta), which I remember seeing print in one of the books DC published during Kirby's sadly brief tenure there when he was doing his amazing "Fourth World" comics. You can even see various references to his DC work in the illustration (note, for example, the little head shot of Orion from Kirby's "New Gods" comic book on the page he is depicted working on).

Of course, this immediately leads to an obvious question: Why in the world is an illustration from Kirby's time at DC Comics being used for an article about the "Marvel Method"? What was going through the editor's and/or art director's mind/s when putting this page together? Could one not find, in all the thousands of pages of art Kirby produced for Marvel, something which would have worked here?

Not only that, but as I understand it, the way Kirby worked on his books at DC during that time was not at all in the "Marvel Method"... so the choice of this illustration is even less coherent.

Weird. -- PL

It's the king's birthday!

Just a few minutes ago I was reminded that today is Jack Kirby's birthday… and I know I've used this already in a blog post, but I think it deserves being posted again.

Happy birthday to the king of comics! -- PL

Blast from the Past #149: Demon Turtle

Regular readers of this blog know of my admiration for Jack Kirby and his character of Etrigan, the Demon. I found this unfinished sketch of a Turtle as Etrigan in one of my old sketchbooks. -- PL

Blast from the Past #56 repost: Kirbyship

Some years ago I had the idea of bringing together the Mirage black and white turtles with the Archie color version of the TMNT, and I was going to use the concept (introduced in the Mirage DONATELLO one-issue "micro-series") of the artist Kirby (based on the late great Jack "King" Kirby) and his "warp crystal". The character of Kirby would use the cosmic powers of the warp crystal to bridge the gap between the two universes (Mirage and Archie), and we would see the color turtles interacting with the black and white ones (literally -- I planned to do the art in color to represent whatever was in the Archie TMNT universe, and black and white with grey tones to represent the Mirage TMNT universe, sometimes mixing the styles on the same page). I intended to work with my pal Ken Mitchroney, who had penciled many of the Archie TMNT books -- he would handle the pencils on the color TMNT elements, whereas I would do the black and white TMNT stuff. I had written out a rough plot, and done the sketch below (of the ship Kirby creates to travel back and forth between universes), but the project never got off the ground, for a variety of reasons. -- PL

Blast from the Past #50 repost: TMNT as drawn by Jack Kirby!

For this special fiftieth "Blast From The Past", I thought I would choose one of my favorite and most unique pieces, and one that I have Kevin to thank for. I don't know the exact process by which it came to be, but my understanding is that some time in the late 1980's or early 1990's, Jack Kirby did this 10 inch by 15 inch pencil drawing -- his interpretation of the TMNT -- at Kevin's request, and some years later, Kevin (who knew I loved this piece) graciously gave it to me.



As far as I know, this is the only time "The King" ever drew the TMNT... and it's SO Kirby. I love it! -- PL

P.S. This next bit of text was run along with the above when I first posted this "Blast from the Past" entry on the planetracers.com website some years ago. It's obviously dated now, but it contains a few interesting things, so I thought I would include it here.

"UPDATE!
As Dan Berger has already indicated on the official TMNT website (ninjaturtles.com), the first issue of the new TMNT comic book is at the printer, and just two days ago we approved the proof, and they are going ahead and printing it. We have been told that it could be shipping on December 11th, so we'll keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best. Mike Dooney's cover came out great (at least in the proof), and I can't wait to see the finished product.

I messed up big time with a technical aspect of this first new TMNT issue. A bit of background -- when Jim Lawson and I worked on PLANET RACERS, I did all of the lettering on my Mac in QuarkXpress. However, instead of sending the books to the printer as all-digital files, I printed out all of the interior pages as 11 by 17 prints and sent all of those to the printer for them to shoot from (the cover I sent on disk). I did this because I was paranoid about fonts changing, balloons disappearing, art pages changing places, etc. -- all nightmares I had heard from other people who have done their pre-press stuff digitally. But with this new TMNT book, I decided to follow the example of Dan Berger (GUTWALLOW) and Jim Lawson (PALEO) and send the entire thing as a digital file. Unfortunately, I should have checked with Dan on what exact size I should make the pages in Quark -- I didn't, and I ended up having to resize the entire book, page by page, balloon by balloon, text block by text block. It put the delivery of the file to the printer back by at least a day. And now I have to do the same thing with the second issue, which I had also started lettering at the wrong size! Oh well... live and learn.

A couple of days ago, I finally accepted the fact that at the speed I am inking, this book will never come out on a reasonable schedule. Fortunately, Eric Talbot recently moved back to our area and is going to help me out with the inking, starting with issue #3. Thanks, Eric!

Several weeks ago, I had the distinct pleasure of seeing Steve Barron (director of the first TMNT movie) again for several days of meetings here in Northampton, meetings having to do with a potential TMNT project about which I can't really say anything right now. During one of our breaks, I was chatting with Steve about that first TMNT movie, and he mentioned that he had a videotape of his first rough assembly of the film, and he offered to send me a copy. True to his word, Steve got a copy of the tape to me last week, and I had a ball watching it. It is VERY rough, there are a few scenes missing (not many, though), there's no music, no finished sound or voices (curiously, in many of the turtle speaking scenes you can hear two voices - the actor in the turtle suit and the puppeteer -- speaking the same lines simultaneously!). What there IS, though, is some neat stuff that never made it into the final released cut of the film, including several fairly long scenes -- one of which is the comic publisher's office scene intended as the ending of the movie, from which I had only seen one still (I was never sure if the whole scene had been shot). There is also a wonderful extended training scene when the turtles are recuperating at the old farm, as well as many other character bits and pieces which got trimmed.

I asked Steve if he would be willing to work on a director's cut version of the film for a DVD release, and he said "Sure!" Whether or not the film still exists to use for a project like this, I don't know. But it sure would be cool! Maybe it's time to start bugging New Line...

--Peter"

Blast from the Past #31 repost: TMNT with dimensional gateway

This is kind of fun -- another drawing whose purpose I can’t recall, though I was clearly having a good time drawing it. I think I drew this one sometime in the early 1990's. I like the "homage" to one of Jack Kirby's many concepts from his "Fourth World" series at DC -- the "Boom Tube".



Curiously, the day after I scanned the pencils, I found hanging on the wall of my ofice at Mirage Studios this cool inked version. Jim Lawson inked Leo, Eric Talbot inked Don, Mike Dooney inked Mike, and Dan Berger inked Raph. -- PL