Bookplates for "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Ultimate Visual History" book

     Yesterday, I got a small box in the mail which contained several hundred bookplates for Andrew Farago's "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Ultimate Visual History" book. Andrew had asked me some time ago if I would be willing to sign them, and I agreed. So today I got out my trusty fine-point Sharpie pen, and spent a few hours in my office at Mirage Studios autographing and doing a little Turtle head sketch on each one. I got a bit of a hand cramp, but made it through the whole pile.

     Just for the heck of it, I laid them all out on the table in the Mirage lunch room, and took this photo:

     The bookplates are on their way now to Kevin Eastman, and then on to Andrew, for their signatures.

     I asked Andrew if he could send me a quote to explain what the bookplates were all about, and he got right back to me with the following:

     "I'm thrilled to announce a limited edition bookplate for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Ultimate Visual History signed by me and TMNT co-creators Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman.  My website is under construction right now, so please follow my Facebook page for details:  

     https://www.facebook.com/andrewfaragocartoons

     I'll also post details on my Twitter account: @andrewfarago

     A number of the bookplates will be sold to raise funds for Team Cul de Sac, a charitable organization that raises funds for Parkinson's research.  Their founder, Chris Sparks, will post an announcement here once they're available:  http://teamculdesac.blogspot.com/

     Writing this book and getting to spend two years researching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has been a blast, and I'm glad to see that it's been getting such a great reaction from fans and professionals alike.

     Thanks!

     Andrew Farago"

     

     Thanks, Andrew! -- PL

Bookplate

A couple of weeks ago, Dan "The Man" Berger asked me if I'd be interested in doing some art for a "bookplate", which I think he said would be "tipped in" to some of the upcoming collected editions. (Dan, if I'm getting this wrong, please correct me!)

As reference, he gave me a really cool one that Jim Lawson did. Last week, I was sitting at my desk in my Mirage office trying to think of something to draw, when this idea for Donatello with some wacky gadget on his hand popped into my head. So I decided to take a leftover piece of tone paper I had in my office and draw it on that. Here's the inked version...



... and here's the finished version, with tones. -- PL