Snippets #41: August 28, 1987

This snippet is from an August 28, 1987 letter to Mom and Pop:

"Now we're back [from the 1987 San Diego Comic-Con -- PL] and back into the day-to-day grind. Right now, I'm working on completing the art for TMNT $12, which I am doing all by myself. I don't know if I told you about this, but Kevin and I have decided upon a new way of doing the turtle books. After three and a half years of intense collaborative effort, where each bit of story we would work on together and have to agree to, we need a change. So now, we will be alternating books -- I'll do #12, Kevin will do #13, and so on. It's kind of exciting, but at the same time scary, because we've each depended on the other for so long. I'm about a third of the way done with #12 right now, but I'm pretty sure that I'll be able to finish it in time for the scheduled September 30 ship date.

..............

Another (hopefully) minor problem is with the animation company, Murakami/Wolf, which is doing the turtles cartoon. We just got the last set of storyboards last Monday, for episode five, in which the disembodied brain character, Krang, gets a robot body built for him by the Shredder. The problem is that the design of the robot body as shown in the storyboards was absolutely dorky -- it resembled a sick Pillsbury dough-boy. When we called Karl at Playmates about it, he said that it shouldn't be a problem -- that the actual  animated robot body would look different, as it is common practice for the storyboard artists to do quick roughs for the purposes of the storyboards. Fine and good… until Karl called us again last Friday and told us that Murakami/Wolf said that they were too far into the production of the fifth episode to change the look of the character. This we found hard to believe, and it was pretty strange because the procedure through the last four sets of storyboards is that we would get concept sketches of any new characters along with the boards, and be able to change whatever needed changing. So we told Karl that we wouldn't approve it, and we called Mark Freedman, and he called Karl, and etc. etc…. the upshot being that I think today (Monday) we'l be talking with Karl again to see what we can do about solving the problem."

     [I still remember where Kevin and I were when we had the discussion which resulted in our doing separate issues -- we were sitting in Pulaski Park in Northampton, near the Academy of Music, on a sunny, warm day.

     It was unnerving doing a whole issue of the TMNT comic (except for the lettering) by myself, but ultimately it was fun, and liberating, in a way. Still, all things considered, I think I would have preferred that Kevin and I had kept working in our traditional collaborative style. I never did another full issue of a TMNT comic by myself. I have great respect for people who can do issue after issue of a comic book series -- it's a lot of hard work. 

      But we were under a lot of pressure, mostly related to the rapid expansion of Turtle business, and that way of working together just wasn't feasible anymore. We never really had that level of collaboration again, and I missed it. I still do. But I treasure the memories of working with Kevin on those early TMNT books -- it was a unique experience.

       Contrary to what I said in the first paragraph above, Kevin did not do issue #13 after my issue #12 --  issue #13 ended up being a Mike Dooney book. I can't recall why, exactly, that shift occurred, but I suspect it must have had something to do with the press of business and personal life disrupting Kevin's ability to make the deadline for publication of that issue.

       The "minor problem" with the animation studio doing the new Turtle cartoon was, in retrospect, a harbinger of problems to come. As anyone familiar with that first TMNT animated series is aware, the stupid design for Krang's robot body never got changed. If we had been more on top of things, and been more willing to risk doing stuff that might have delayed -- or even canceled -- the animated series, it might have turned out differently. But this was all new to us, and we really wanted this stuff to happen, and we let a lot of things slide, this included. We were also focused on the comic books Mirage was doing at the time, and didn't have a lot of energy to devote to the animated series... and, truth be told, as could be intuited by the fact that Kevin and I had decided to stop collaborating on the comics, we were not as in synch as we could have been, and did not present the united front which might have made dealing with other business people significantly easier.

       As my brother Bruce might say, "It is what it is." What happened, happened. I can't go back and change it now, as much as I wish I could.

       I'm a bit sad to say that this is the last "Snippet" I will be posting, unless some other old correspondence with bits of Turtle history shows up. I doubt that will happen, but you never know. Thanks for reading these, and I hope you enjoyed them! -- PL]

Snippets #40: June 28, 1987

       This one is from a June 28, 1987 to Stan Sakai:

       "Greetings from the East! Yesterday I picked up the new issue of Usagi Yojimbo, but i didn't read it 'til today. I gotta tell you, Stan -- I was impressed! You already know I like your stuff a lot, but this book was great! You're really developing the character of Usagi in a fascinating manner… the gradual exposure of his history is tantalizing to say the least. And I love his tense friendship with the rhino ronin.

       Reading this book today got me so worked up that I had to do something… so I sat down at the drawing table and roughed out this eight-page story featuring Usagi and Leonardo. It's based around an incident lifted form the Robin Hood legend -- how Robin met (and befriended) Friar Tuck. I'm sending you copies of the roughs (and believe me, they are rough!); I hope you can follow the story. I'd really like to get your OK to finish this, maybe as a backup for your book or one of ours. Please let me know what you think… any suggestions would be appreciated.

       I can't remember the last time that a book inspired me to such immediate (drawing) action… thanks muchly for Usagi Yojimbo!"

       [TMNT fans may recall the short comic book story which came out of the idea of mine mentioned here -- "The Crossing", which I believe appeared in "Usagi Yojimbo" #10. I wrote and drew that one by myself, on Duo-Shade board. Steve Lavigne lettered it.

        

       I remember having a lot of fun with that piece. There is a post on my blog about it here:

       http://peterlairdstmntblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/blast-from-past-90-repost-roughs-for.html

      -- PL]

Snippets #39: January 29, 1987

       This is from a January 29, 1987 handwritten postcard to Mom and Pop:

"Well, we (Kevin and I) just had our first meetings with Playmates Toy today. Yesterday, we drove up to L.A., along with the president and v.p. for marketing of Playmates, to meet with the president of Marvel Productions, the company that Playmates wants to do the TMNT animated series. It was an interesting meeting -- hearing talk of millions of dollars in production cost being casually bandied about. And it looks really positive.. I think they're going to do the animation. But Kev and I aren't counting on anything until it actually happens.

Tonight we might be going out to see some sights in Los Angeles with the two Playmates design people, John Handy and Karl Aaronian… and hopefully we'll be going back home. Can't wait!"

       [As it turned out, Marvel Productions never got the job to do the TMNT animated series... another one of those intriguing "forks in the road". What would have happened if they HAD produced the series? How would it have differed from the MWS version? Would we have been happier with it, or vice versa? Would the mass-market TMNT phenomenon have exploded as it did?

       Impossible to say for certain, but interesting to speculate upon. -- PL]

Snippets #38: January 17, 1987

       This is from a January 17, 1987 letter to Mom and Pop:

       "Guess where I'm going to be on my birthday? Give up? California! Yes, the trip to meet with the Playmates people is now scheduled for the week after next. We'll be leaving on the 27th, meeting on the 28th and 29th, and coming back on the 30th. I'm not really looking forward to it -- I'd much rather be home on my birthday, and regardless of my birthday, I don't like to be away from Jen that long. I just have to look at it as an irritating necessity of my business life, I guess.

     

       I'm enclosing a couple of books that I don't think you have yet -- Leonardo #1 and Gobbledygook #1. Gotta keep your collection of Mirage Studios pubs up to date, right?"

       [I think this was the very first visit Kevin and I made to Playmates Toys at their headquarters in La Mirada. Mark Freedman of Surge Licensing joined us out there. We met two of the major players working on the TMNT toy line at that initial meeting -- John Handy and Karl Aaronian.

      Given what was to follow, which of course I could not fully envision at that point, it's a little amusing to see me describing this trip as an "irritating necessity of my business life"... which, I suppose, at that point it was. Taking four days out of our schedules when we were going great guns with the comics and struggling to keep up with our self-imposed deadlines probably did seem annoying at that time. And I really didn't like being away from my wife for that long.

       It's funny -- during the time between the date of my last entry in these "Snippets", which was from June 7, 1986, and this one roughly seven months later in January of 1987, a lot of really important stuff happened -- we moved from Connecticut to Massachusetts, set up actual office space for Mirage Studios, lost one secretary/office manager, then hired another... and probably most significant, we got contacted out of the blue by Mark Freedman, met with him in Northampton and signed a deal for him to be the licensing agent for the TMNT property. I can't say for certain, because the dates are a little fuzzy in my brain, but it's also possible that both Jim Lawson and Mike Dooney moved to the Northampton area from Connecticut and New Jersey, respectively, during this period.

       I really wish I'd written more of this stuff down when it was happening.
  
        If memory serves, for some reason I ended up coming back by myself from sunny, warm California, and found my car covered in more than a foot of snow... which I had to dig it out of, with no shovel, in the unplowed parking lot at the airport. Not a pleasant experience. At least by this time I had a reliable new Honda which I would not worry about so much in terms of starting when I needed it to and having an actual working heater for the cold months.
    
        It's possible that I am conflating this with some other winter trip which ended the same way... regardless, not fun. -- PL]

Snippets #37: June 7, 1986

       

       This one is from a June 7, 1986 letter to June Brigman (a very talented comic book artist):

"Dear June,

This letter is about a month late, but then, that's the way things have been here since January. I had meant to write earlier and thank you for your hospitality to myself and MIchael Dooney when we came down to White Plains for Ted's show. The meal and the company were excellent, and I thank you.

Thanks also for the "Demon sketch -- it's a prime addition to my growing collection! As you requested, I'm sending along a copy of it for you. Again, I'm sorry it's late, but Kevin and I have been insanely busy these last several weeks, getting the artwork for Donatello, our latest micro-series, done, and doing the pencils for TMNT #8 (the Cerebus/Turtles crossover issue), along with a hundred other things… including getting ready to pack up and move to Massachusetts, which we will be doing on June 20. Yow! So much to do…

I hope you and Roy are doing well… Kev and I are looking forward to seeing you at the June 15 show in NYC. Take care!

Peter

P.S. I'm also enclosing a couple of copies of Gizmo #2, hot off the presses! and possibly some information about a new project for next year that you might be interested in."

       [The drawing at the top is the aforementioned "Demon" sketch by June Brigman, originally posted on my "palblog" site, at this URL:

       http://plairdblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/demon-sketchbook-part-6.html

       There are other sketches of Jack Kirby's "Etrigan the Demon" character by various artists on that blog, if you care to see them. 

       The show in White Plains, NY was notable for meeting June and her husband Roy, but I also recall another thing which happened there -- I saw my first attempt to create a counterfeit TMNT #1, first printing. 

       A kid came up to my table and asked me to sign his first printing of our first issue, but when I opened the front cover, I had to give him the bad news: Someone had sold him a second printing, with the word "second" whited out (with actual "White Out" correction paint!) and "first" written in its place. 

       The kid was crestfallen. I felt bad for him, but... how do you miss something like that? I mean, it was a pretty obvious, crude attempt to make a second printing look like a first.  Fortunately, that's the only time I ever ran into skullduggery like that regarding a TMNT #1 first printing. -- PL]

Snippets #36: March 1, 1986

This one is from a March 1, 1986 letter to Mom and Pop typed on our Coleco ADAM computer:

"I'm really sorry to have been such a bum about writing letters… it's just that I have been so freaking' busy! I won't bore you with the details, as I'm sure you heard enough about it in my video letter. Suffice it to say that while we feel great about finally finishing TMNT #7 (three weeks late, but what the heck), we are still under the gun with our next book to finish by the end of May, along with all the artwork for the second turtle role-playing game. So for the next few months, we'll still be insanely busy. C'est la vie!

The weather here has been beautiful lately, except for one bizarre day last week. It just happened to be the very day that we had to drive out to Poughkeepsie to deliver the artwork for TMNT #7 to the printer. Well, that morning it was snowing! I mean, the day before had been sunny and warm, almost 70… and here it was, snow, blowing all over the place! On the way out to Poughkeepsie, it actually turned into a small blizzard, and the driving was pretty hellish, all the way out and all the way back. I thought that we might be in for a relapse of winter, but the very next day it was hot and sunny and all the snow had disappeared. Who can figure…?

…………..

Kevin and I are getting ready to leave for FLorida tomorrow, for a two-day convention in Fort Lauderdale. We'll be coming back next Tuesday, probably in a sunburned state. Should be fun!"

        [Fans knowledgeable of TMNT history may realize that the Fort Lauderdale convention mentioned in the last paragraph was the one out of which came the "Turtlemania" collectible -- a small fanzine-type publication featuring a variety of TMNT art. Its various iterations have gone on to demand high prices as collectibles over the years since… I'm not entirely sure why.

I recall that this show was small, held in a medium-sized function room at a hotel, and that Kevin and I came to refer to it as the "Relaxi-Con", due to the very low traffic and light crowds. I remember it was so dead at times that some of the dealers were playing cards with each other to alleviate the boredom. 

       I am intrigued by the mention of a "video letter" -- I seem to recall creating something like this with a rented video camera when we lived in Sharon. I wonder if I have a copy of it somewhere...? -- PL]

Snippets #35: August 10, 1985 (first San Diego Comicon trip, part five)

San Diego Day 4

     This was our "day off", and we had a lot of fun. First we all went to eat breakfast at the Executive again, and who should be sitting there at another table but Roz and Jack Kirby. I considered going over to say hello again, but decided that I should let them eat their breakfast in peace.

     After breakfast, we took Alison's car to Balboa Park, which houses lots of attractions including the Museum of Natural History and the San Diego Zoo. The Museum was where Monica Sharp and Dave Garcia had told us there would be a dinosaur exhibit, so I was really psyched to see that first.

     The exhibit was on the second floor of the museum, and it was great! I was in seventh heaven. That had these near life-size replicas of five dinosaurs -- Stegosaurus, Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Brontosaurus, and Trachodon -- and one prehistoric mammal, the wooly mammoth. The modeling of these beasts was superb -- they were done in painted latex rubber -- but what was neat was that they were all constructed with computer-controlled motor-driven armatures which made them move around and make animal noises! It was quite something -- the best one, oddly enough, was the Brontosaurus, which didn't make very dramatic moves or noises like the Tyrannosaurus Rex… but it had a way of snaking its long neck (surmounted by its tiny head) over towards you, and kind of looking you in the eye and cocking its head just so and opening its mouth and roaring… Well, you had to be there, I guess. 

     Of course, you can't have a museum like that without a gift shop, and they had two -- the regular one and one set up specially for the dinosaur exhibit. I went crazy in that one -- Kevin said later that he came in and found me wandering about with glassy eyes, stuffing dinosauria into a little shopping basket. I think I spent a total of about $150 on dinosaur stuff there, including t-shirts with dinosaurs on them, dinosaur tie-clips, pins, etc.. That whole museum excursion made my day.

     After that, we strolled over to the San Diego Zoo, and took the cable car ride over the length of the zoo (much too short a ride, though the zoo is pretty wide), then got off it and walked around. All the animal exhibits there are open to the sky, and there were some neat animals -- though how that shaggy musk ox took the heat, I don't know. A lot of the nocturnal animals were hiding in their enclosures (which usually had plenty of bushes and logs and stuff in them), which made them rather hard to see.

     We were determined to get to the beach and actually immerse ourselves in the Pacific Ocean. This took longer than it should have, due to our lack of familiarity with the local geography, but we finally made it to a beach called, cleverly, Ocean Beach. The waves were pretty big, and it was quite a kick to frolic in them. The water wasn't exactly warm, but it was hardly as cold as the water back in the New Hampshire ocean.

     After enjoying the beach and getting sand in everything we had carried with us, we took a cab back to our hotel (Alison had left earlier to head back to L.A.), then went out to dinner again at a Jolly Roger restaurant in the Seaport VIllage, and again stuffed ourselves. We did a little more shopping there, then wandered back to our hotel, happy as little clams. It had been a great day, and a wonderful way to end the weekend.

     The return trip was uneventful (and on an airplane, an uneventful ride is what you look for), and we got back into Bradley Airport in Hartford around 6:00 PM Connecticut time (we lost the three hours we had gained). The car started after five days in the parking lot (hurrah!) and it was smooth sailing all the way back to good ol' Sharon, CT.

I'm really glad that we went out to the San Diego Con, and would like to do the same thing next year, but a little differently. I think that next time, Kevin and I will go out by ourselves for the first three days of the convention, and"

(missing last page of letter)

     [I do recall quite clearly my delight in seeing that dinosaur exhibit in the Museum of Natural History at Balboa Park. It was the first time I'd ever encountered those animatronic dinosaurs, which now seem to be a staple of kid-friendly dinosaur shows. But back then, it was a thrill to see these things. It really spoke to the little kid in me. 

       The brief mention that "the car started after five days in the parking lot" might seem odd to anyone who drives a modern, reliable car... but back then, finances dictated that we drive some pretty awful old vehicles, and it was always a question if they would work properly... or at least well enough so that we were not stranded somewhere. 

       I think it was roughly a year after this trip that Jeannine and I bought our first new car -- a base model Honda Civic -- from a dealership in Torrington, and it was wonderful. -- PL]

Snippets #34: August 10, 1985 (first San Diego Comicon trip, part three)

[Note: This is the third part of the "group letter" which I wrote and mailed to family members and a few friends to let them know about my first trip to the San Diego Comic Con.

The photo above shows Kevin Eastman posing across the street from the old convention center where the San Diego Comicon used to be held. -- PL]

"Comicon Day 2

The second morning of the convention, we decided to bypass the yucky Hotel San Diego breakfast fare and go instead to the Executive Hotel up the street, which Norman had suggested as a better place to eat. It was… the breakfast was great (albeit more expensive) and we had a nice view of the city and the bay, as the restaurant was on the 9th floor of the hotel.

Thus fortified, we made out way over to the convention hall at about 9:00, only to find that no one was being allowed in until 9:30, and the public at 10:00. I guess they were afraid if they let some dealers in earlier than others there might be some pilfering. (We didn't worry about that because we took everything with us when we left the con.) Finally, we were let in, and proceeded to set up and get down to work on the list of sketches that we had accumulated the previous day. It was getting pretty long… I think we had about sixteen people on the list at that point.

The day went pretty much as the first day. We were kept very busy selling books, signing books, talking to fans and friends, and drawing. We also actually got a chance to look around at some of the multitudinous tables full of wonderful merchandise, though there was no way we could look at it all. I picked up a couple of really neat robot models, and a few comics. I also found a table where they were selling original art by Russ Manning from a book called Magnus, Robot Fighter which appeared in the sixties, and which was one of my favorite books and a great influence on my drawing. I bought two of these pages at $65 each, though I would have liked to have bought more.

The was so much neat original art there that it's a wonder that I came home with any money at all!

We left the convention that day a little earlier than the first day, because we had made reservations to take a harbor dinner cruise. So we zipped back to the hotel, got freshened up, and walked down to the dock where the boat, a cute paddlewheel job, was moored. We had a fun time on the boat -- the dinner was mediocre, but it was neat to see the sights around the harbor, and to go up on the open top deck and catch the ocean breezes. The cruise lasted about three hours, so it was getting dark by the time we returned. One really cool thing that happened was that just after sunset, we were on the top deck when we saw a bright orange and white vapor trail appear over the western horizon and rise in the sky. When it was about 45 degrees above the horizon, it suddenly stopped and then just as suddenly fanned out in a huge bright white plume of vapor or smoke, which lasted for about another two minutes, then stopped. It was really quite dramatic, and everyone was trying to guess what it was. I thought is was a missile or rocket of some sort, and found out the next day that I was right -- it was a rocket carrying upper atmosphere sensors that had been fired from Vandenburg Air Force Base."

        [I wish I had bought a few more of those Russ Manning pages! Prices sure were different thirty years ago. -- PL]

Snippets #33: August 10, 1985 (first San Diego Comicon trip, part two)

       [Note: This is the second part of the "group letter" which I wrote and mailed to family members and a few friends to let them know about my first trip to the San Diego Comic Con.

     The photo above is of Kevin and me at our little table in "Artists' Alley", showing Kevin hard at work on a TMNT sketch, and me taking a little break to at least look up from doing a drawing in someone's convention sketchbook.]

COMICON DAY ONE

       The first morning of the convention, Kev and I got up fairly early (7:00 AM) and had a lousy breakfast in the hotel restaurant (our first and last there). Then, shouldering our suitcases and portfolio packed with Turtlebilia, we mosied over to the convention hall, where all the dealers were busy getting set up. Just outside the hall we ran into Norman Witty (remember Omega books?), who helped us find our table, which just happened to be across from his in the dealers' room. The dealers' room was huge, and just crammed with tables filled with all the kinds of things we would have liked to have spent all three days just looking through. But such was not to be. Shortly after we had our table set up, they opened the doors to the public, and from then on we were busybusybusy!

       We did a brisk business in books (we had brought with us 50 copies of each book), but were kept even busier doing sketches. We were charging $8 for a pencil sketch, $8 more to ink that in, and an additional $9 to color it. And we had more business that we could handle. I think at our next convention we will have to raise our prices even more… even though we'd like to keep the prices low so even the little kids can afford one.

       That first day we got to meet a bunch of people who we had known only through their work and/or correspondence with us, including Brad Foster (who inked the first pin-up page in issue #2), Clay Geerdes (publisher of lots of "newwave" mini-comics… Kevin's first published comics work was done for him), Par Holman and David Miller (also newwave artists), Larry Marder (does a comic called "Tales of the Beanworld"), Walt Simonson (does a lot of stuff for Marvel Comics, including Thor), Dave Garcia and his wife Monica Sharp, who draw and write, respectively, a comic story called Panda Khan which is finally seeing print as a back-up story in a book called "A Distant Soil" (Dave and Monica also clued us in to the ongoing dinosaur exhibit at the San Diego Museum of Natural History… more on that later), and last but not least, Frank Miller, who came to our table to tell us how much he liked our book. (Frank Miller was one of the guys that the first book was dedicated to, and it was his style that we emulated in that first issue… the cover was in fact a parody of Miller's cover to his first Ronin book.)

       We stayed at the convention 'til about 6:00P.M., then packed up and went back to the hotel. Kev and I were beat but happy (meeting Frank Miller made our day), but had enough energy to take a fifteen minute stroll down the street to a neat little place called Harbor Village, which was a collection of little shops and restaurants located right on the edge of the harbor. We ate dinner at the Harbor House, with a view of the ocean as we pigged out on seafood and other great stuff. I could barely walk when we left to go back to the hotel, I was so stuffed.

        [I've forgotten a lot about our first San Diego Comicon trip, but one thing I do remember is how busy we were doing sketches. It was crazy! We would go on, as the years passed, to become more realistic and organized about doing sketches at shows, and not put ourselves in that awkward position of taking on too many sketch commissions, with full and honest intentions of drawing all of them... and then running out of time because it was impossible to predict how busy we would be doing other things, like talking with fans and selling our other merchandise. I always hated disappointing people who had asked for sketches, and I know Kevin felt the same way. 

       Eventually, as the TMNT thing became huge, I realized that there was never going to be a way for me to do full sketches for all of the folks who wanted them, and on top of that, there was no way I was going to be able to adequately enjoy the convention experience if I was constantly busy doing those sketches (I'm definitely NOT the fastest convention sketcher out there). 

       So I created a compromise which has worked pretty well -- I developed my signature TMNT "head sketch". This is exactly what it sounds like -- a quick sketch of a Turtle's head, either smiling or snarling, typically, and sometimes (especially if it is not a really quick free sketch done in someone's comic or sketchbook) with a little bit of the shell showing.

       When I first started doing this, I offered them for free, as a way of letting everyone who wanted a TMNT sketch to get a small piece of art.

       That quickly proved to be unworkable, because -- as I think most people who have appeared at conventions as guests or vendors (or both) know -- whenever you start offering stuff for free, the lines get long really fast. So I had to start charging for sketches, even those little ones. I think I began at one dollar per head sketch, and went from there. -- PL]

Snippets #32: August 10, 1985 (first San Diego Comicon trip, part one)

       This is from an August 10, 1985 letter to various.

Note: This letter is a kind of "group letter" which I wrote and mailed to family members and a few friends to let them know about my first trip to the San Diego Comic Con. I obviously didn't take my ADAM computer with me, nor a typewriter, and laptops were far off in the future… so how did I include all the daily details? It's possible my memory was much sharper back then, but I suspect I actually made some handwritten notes while out there, so I could later put together a letter like this.

This was not my first airplane experience -- I think that must have been either the Detroit convention or the Atlanta convention -- but it was definitely my first trip to the other side of the USA.

I find it interesting that I made no mention of Stan Sakai -- I thought for sure he and I met out there on this trip. Maybe it was the next one, in 1986? Hard to say, and I have not run across a letter about that trip yet, if such a thing exists. 

Also, I should note that in my excited description of Jack Kirby later in the letter, I think I should have said "co-creator" for some of those characters referred to there. 

        Unfortunately, the only copy of this letter which I have so far been able to find is missing the last page. But I don't think there was likely much on that last page, as the last paragraph of the penultimate page finds us back in Sharon, CT, after the Con. 

        Because this letter is somewhat lengthy, and also because it is conveniently broken up into each day's experiences, I think I will post one day per day, beginning with the trip out, as follows. -- PL]

        "Yow! Here I am, back on the east coast after five fun-filled and exciting days in San Diego. What a trip!

        Everything went well, for which I am grateful. We left Sharon two Wednesdays ago (July 31) at 9:00AM, because we didn't want to miss our 12:05 flight from Hartford. We got there on time, and checked in without any problems, then boarded the plane and headed off to Pittsburgh, PA, where we changed planes. Then from there is was on to San Diego, with one stop in Phoenix, AZ. It was neat flying over the desert -- it looks like such an alien landscape, so unlike New England. There was so much flat, open space with very little vegetation, and where there were hills they just kind of rose abruptly out of the earth, with no thick growth of trees to soften their contours. Pretty wild-looking! But basically the flight was pretty boring… took about six hours to get to San Diego form Hartford.

        Actually, it was pretty neat landing in San Diego, because the airport is almost in the downtown! Really, I' say the landing and take-off strips are no more than a mile or two from the center of town. So we got a pretty good aerial view of the city on our way down. We got our luggage (crammed with all kinds of valuable stuff!) with no problem, and grabbed a cab to our hotel, which was just a short distance from the airport. It was strange to think that we had just gained three hours by flying to California… it was about 5:30 when we arrived at our hotel, the Hotel San Diego. Not a bad place -- a nice hotel that had obviously seen better days, and was a little run down, but well-staffed.

        Kevin and I took advantage of the fact that it was still so early to walk around a bit. The hotel was right in the downtown, and was (thankfully) a pretty short walk to the convention center where the comic con was being held (about three blocks). We cruised around a bit, taking in the sights and marveling at the lack of traffic on the streets and sidewalks. It all seemed very mellow, even on the strip in front of our hotel. Curiously enough, the Hotel San Diego was directly across the street from the last strip of "adult" entertainment facilities in downtown San Diego -- a few adult book stores, some strip joints, and several tattoo parlors. It became clear later that this was a pretty small strip considering that there were tons of sailors from the nearby naval bases roaming around the town. It was all strangely mellow, though -- nobody hassled you. The same area in New York would have you fearing for your life. What was really odd was that on our side of the street, there were all these nice hotels and further down all these beautiful condos and even further a complex of little Yuppy shops called Seaport Village.

        Kevin went back to the airport to meet his girlfriend Diane, whose flight was scheduled to get in at 8:00. While he did that, I wandered around the hotel and strolled down the sidewalk a ways. I was standing out on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, eating a Chipwich, when Kev and Diane pulled up in a taxi. We were all too tired to go out to dinner that night, so we had a drink at the hotel bar and shuffled off to bed."

Snippets #31: August ?, 1985

       This one is from an August ?, 1985 letter to my brother Don (not dated; date approximated from context and content of letter):

"Since you last visited (which was the last time I communicated with you), we've done two store signings and gone to Detroit for a two day convention.

Not only that, but we've done two more books -- TMNT #4 and Fugitoid) the latter to see print in the first week of September). Have you got a copy of TMNT #4? I can't remember if I sent you one or not… so I'll include one with this letter. 

……

I do feel that I should at least get this short missive out to you so that you will know that I am thinking of you… and I really won't have an opportunity to write you again until next Tuesday (August 6?) which is when we will be getting back from the San Diego Comic Convention. We're leaving this Wednesday, taking a noon flight out. The con starts on Thursday and goes through Sunday. We'll be leaving on Monday morning to come back to Sharon. But you might ask why I can't write a letter between now and Wednesday… the answer to that is that we are currently working feverishly to finish the artwork for the TMNT role-playing game, which is due to hit the shelves in October. Our deadline to finish everything for that project is August 19, and it will be tight! Then, right after we finish that, we have to jump right into doing TMNT #5, which is supposed to hit the stands in the first week of November. Wish us luck!"

Snippets #29: March 28, 1985

This is from a March 28, 1985 letter to my friend Stan Wiater:

"Dear Stan,

Back from Atlanta we are, and plowing through the accumulated work… answering mail, sending out orders of t-shirt iron-ons, figures, and books. Getting settled in again so we can get back to work on the art for Raphael, the one issue "Micro-Series" which has to go to press on April 15. In between now and then, we expect to get back 35,000 copies of the third printing of #1, which we will have to count, box and ship out. Then after that, we will have 50,000 copies of #3 with which to do the same.

Whoa! Am I getting ahead of myself? I guess I am… we haven't corresponded since some time around Christmas, so you aren't up on all the Turtle news. Briefly, things are still expanding at a fairly rapid clip. Kevin and I are still amazed at the response to our Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles book, but we don't have much time these days for amazement. It's workworkwork, 70-hour weeks, all on TMNT stuff. The books are selling like the proverbial hotcakes, and we have t-shirt iron-ons, little metal miniatures, and a projected fantasy role-plaing game based around the turtles which is in the works. Plus we've just started doing conventions; two weekends ago we did a small one up in Kittery, ME, and this past weekend we did one in Atlanta, GA… and can you believe that the Atlanta people actually paid for our hotel room and plane fare? Too much!!! I'm not complaining, of course… but it does take some getting used to.

Atlanta was fun, but it seemed to go really quickly… it almost seems now like we were never really there… there was no sense of actually traveling a great distance. On the plane, once you get high enough altitude-wise, you can't really tell where you are. It gets to be like riding a bus. Then you land, a couple of hours later, and you are a thousand miles away. And what we saw of Atlanta seemed no different than any big town up this way; the same stores, the same cars, the same people in the same clothes. About the only significant difference was the way everyone added "you all" to almost every sentence. The Northlake Hilton, at which we stayed, was on the outer outskirts of Atlanta proper, so we didn't get to stroll around downtown. That was okay, though, because we were too busy to really notice.

We got to the hotel at around 2:00 PM, checked in, freshened up, and then went and set up our table. The con opened at 3:00, and from then 'til about 7:00 we sold books and drew sketches. After it all closed down for the night, we were both too beat to do anything but take a short walk down "Mall Avenue", eat at Wendy's, and then go back to hotel and crash out. Saturday morning we went out to breakfast with some of the other artist-guests, Bob McCleod and June Brigman (and her husband Roy), who took us to a neat pancake house where we pigged out on huge apple and cinnamon pancakes the size of pizzas, and heard lots of inside gossip about Marvel Comics (Bob and June both work for Marvel). They're also very nice people, and I'm glad we got to meet them.

Then it was back to the convention to set up our table at 11:00 AM, and from that time until about 6:00 that evening we sold books and did sketches. There were almost no breaks; I think we easily made as much money sketching as we did on the books. We would charge $5 for a simple pencil drawing, and another $5 if the person wanted it inked in. Lots of people asked for sketches of the turtles with other characters; we ended up doing Elric, Dr. Strange, the Thing, Cerebus, Nghtcrawler, Wolverine, Daredevil, and Opus, among others. It was fun but stressful, with all those people standing there watching us draw. Everybody seemed happy with their sketches, though, which was nice.

That evening there was a seafood buffet in the hotel's restaurant for all the guests of the convention (paid for by the convention organizers), and Kevin and I of course attended that. The food was plentiful, and we proceeded to pig out on shrimp, fried chicken, roast beef, crab legs, etc., topping it off with ice cream sundaes. Quite enjoyable.

Oh, I just remembered that before that dinner I was shanghaied into being one of four judges at the costume contest. It was relatively painless, but kind of embarrassing.

One of the biggest geeks attending this convention turned out to be one of the big-time ______ Comics writers, ______, who writes ________, _______ and others. Partly because of the mammoth success of _______, his ego has swollen to monstrous dimensions, and he can't open his mouth without sounding incredibly arrogant and obnoxious. I'm glad that we didn't have much to do with him. The funny thing was that every other person here who knew him expressed the same opinion of him, but he was totally oblivious. I hope that I don't get that way if the turtles become mega-successful.

Sunday turned out to be pretty much the same. We sold books and sketched until around 3:00, when we took off with Bob McCleod to the airport. Our flight wasn't until 5:45, but we wanted to make sure we didn't miss it! As it turned out, the woman who was driving us to the airport  missed the exit, and we were lost for about twenty minutes. And if I hadn't pointed out to her that we had indeed passed what looked like the airport several miles back, we might have been lost a lot longer. The flight back was pretty uneventful… more yucky airline food and lots of disgusting cigarette smoke (we were unable to get two seats in the non-smoking section). But coming over Hartford and into Bradley Field at night was pretty cool… seeing all the lights from high up was neat. I wouldn't mind doing it again.

As you know, we have another trip scheduled for April 6, this time a shorter one: We'll be in Amherst for a signing at Norm Witty's comic book store. If you can squeeze in a few moments to get there and say hi, that would be great. I don't know what our schedule will be exactly; we may be going back to Sharon right after the signing.

After that trip, who knows? Just about an hour ago, I got a call from some guy out in Michigan who wants Kevin and I to attend a benefit show for a children's hospital there. We might go… I'll have to think about it some more. We are seriously considering trying to get out to the San Diego convention in late July of this year -- it's probably the biggest in the country. But a lot depends on how things are going at that time."

       [I note with some incredulity that at the time this letter was written, cigarette smoking was still allowed on airplanes. The staggering stupidity of this practice  -- fortunately now long-gone -- always astonished me. It stands as one of the most moronic thing I have even encountered. And the idea that you could have a "smoking section" and a "non-smoking section" on the same aircraft, where the entire passenger compartment is essentially ONE UNINTERRUPTED METAL TUBE, is simply brain-bendingly inane. -- PL]

Snippets #28: May 12, 1985

     This one is from a May 12, 1985 letter to Mom and Pop:

     "The last shipment of TMNT #3 went out Friday, for which I am grateful. I am so glad that we will not be doing that anymore, and that our new printer will be handling all the handling. I hope that our new printer will prove to be more reliable than our old one, with whom I am very disgusted.

     What's going on with Turtles? Well, we're working right now on the artwork for issue #4, which should go to the printer around June 10. They are already working on the Raphael special issue, which should be shipping in the next few weeks. Then we are working out a deal with this guy from Windsor, CT to do a limited edition of button sets. And the game is still in the works; just before Kevin left for his vacation, we signed and sent off the contracts for that. I think pretty soon we'll have to start working on the artwork for that game.

     Then we're planning to do another signing, this time at a comic book store down in New Haven. They called us and asked if we'd be interested, and we're doing that on June 8. And we're definitely planning to go to that convention in Michigan, to which we have been invited, on June 29-30. After that, if we can swing it, we may go to the big San Diego convention in August. (We haven't been invited, but it would be fun to go anyway!) Plus we have to work on the Fugitoid book, which is scheduled for August, and issue TMNT after that, and after that the special Michaelangelo one-shot issue in December. So as you can see, we have our time pretty well booked up."

     [When I wrote the following:

     "Plus we have to work on the Fugitoid book, which is scheduled for August, and issue TMNT after that, and after that the special Michaelangelo one-shot issue in December."

     … I think "issue TMNT" was meant to be "issue #5 of TMNT". 

     The new printer mentioned in the first paragraph was Southern Duchess News in Poughkeepsie, NY. Their taking over the shipping duties made a HUGE difference in our work lives. It was bad enough when the print runs were 15,000 to 30,000 or so, but I shudder to think what a horror show it would have been had we kept the old way of doing things when we got to the higher print runs for some later books.

     "The game" was the Palladium Books role-playing game.

     The convention in Michigan turned out to have some special significance to the history of Mirage Studios -- it's where we met Dan Berger and Ryan Brown. -- PL]

Snippets #27: February 25, 1985

       This "Snippet" is from a February 25, 1985 letter to Mom and Pop:

       "AAAAAGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!

       FInally, I am taking a few moments out of my hectic schedule to try to catch up on some sorely neglected correspondence. I think this is the first non-business letter that I have written in the last two weeks.

       As I think you know, these past couple of weeks have been BUSY, to put it mildly. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that Kevin and I have been putting in 70-hour weeks doing turtle work. Let's see… since Kevin got here on Feb. 1, we've done a lot of stuff. First and foremost was starting work on TMNT #3, which at that time was still in incomplete thumbnail sketches, and lacking finished dialogue. In addition to that, we worked out all the finished dialogue for our upcoming Raphael, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Micro-Series, the artwork for which (25 pages) we have to get done by April 15. Then, last week we got all 30,000 copies of TMNT #2 (second printing) and have been splitting up our time between finishing the artwork for #3 and counting and packing #2's. It's wild… I don't think I've ever worked this hard before. So far we've shipped out 50 boxes (@ 12500 copies), and hope to get all the rest of them out by the middle of next week.

       We are also talking to an outfit called Palladium Books, which does role-playing ames like Dungeons and Dragons. They want to do a book/game based on the turtles, and it looks promising. Kev and I would probably do a bunch of drawings for it, and possibly a full-color cover… yet another project to work into this year's schedule! It would be a fun thing to do, though.

       Sometime in the next couple of weeks, the printer should deliver to us 35,000 copies of the third printing of TMNT #1, and we will start the counting and packing cycle all over again. About 28,000 of these are already sold, and I have a feeling that the rest won't last long. We are going to keep a couple thousand copies in our archives, though, so when we go to conventions we'll have them to sell.

       Speaking of conventions, Kev and I are getting psyched up for the one in Portsmouth, NH on March 16. It's going to be pretty neat, returning to the same con where we premiered the turtle book, but this time as invited guests! And getting our gas expenses paid, a free hotel room, and free tables at the con, yet! It was frantic the last time, and I expect it will be even more so this time. I'm hoping that we will have copies of TMNT#3 to sell there, but I don't think the printer will be able to get them done in time. C'est la vie!

       Having Kevin here is working out fine, though it does remind me that this house, while cute, is still pretty small. We have to get a larger studio; my tiny room here is very crowded when we have both of us plus several thousand comics in it. Every time you turn around fast you knock something over!"

       [That Palladium Books role-playing game was a fun project, and I believe a pretty good seller for Kevin Siembiada's company. But it has other significance in the tale of the TMNT -- its how Mark Freedman of Surge Licensing was able to first notice the TMNT property, and then track us down to talk about an agenting deal. 

       And the rest, as you probably know, is history. -- PL]

Snippets #26: January 29, 1985

       This is from a January 29, 1985 letter to Brad Foster, minicomic publisher:

       "Thanks for all the kind words and congratulations. Rather than watch and worry about when this bubble is going to burst (if it does), Kevin and I are going to try to keep our noses to the grindstone and try to keep producing a book that at least some people will want to read. The success of these first two books still seems a bit unreal to me, like it's happening to someone else… I'm sure you can relate to the feeling of, after years of slaving away at the drawing board and feeling like everything you'd done had gone unnoticed, finally doing something that people actually want to pay money for! It's a nice feeling… I hope it lasts.

       I'm still a little hesitant about spending any of my money on special goodies and treats (because of the lurking fear that TMNT will go down the proverbial tubes and leave me floundering once more) but I do have to take the bull by the horns in this one case and send you the $27.00 for a copy of One Year's Worth. I appreciate your offer of deducting the cost of the TMNT figures, but those were a gift to you. I hope you have good luck in selling the remainder of the OY'sW's. (?)

       Kev and i would love to get out to the fabled and legendary San Diego Comic Con this year, but I'm not sure if our resources will allow it. Exactly when is it, anyway? I don't know if the car we have would hold up on a cross-country trip like that… it's kind of a long drive from Connecticut to California. How do you get there?

       I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens… maybe we'll be too busy with TMNTs and other projects to go anywhere. But it would be fun… I've never been to the west coast."

        [Here we have some more evidence of our -- or at least my -- reluctance back in early 1985 to believe that this Turtle thing was going to continue. At the time, that seemed a sensible way to proceed.

       Kevin and I would make our way out to the San Diego Comicon that very year... and we didn't drive.

       Brad Foster was (and I think still is) a prolific independent publisher through his company "Jabberwocky Graphix", publishing his own and many other artists' work. I believe he was one of Kevin Eastman's first publishers, and I think I drew a couple of things for Brad as well. -- PL]

Snippets #25: January 6, 1985

This one is from a January 6, 1985 letter to Mom and Pop:

       "Whew!!! Finally all the turtles are counted and boxed, the last few UPS pickups are scheduled for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and I can now get back to doing real stuff, like writing letters and drawing.

………

       The biggest and best news here is that Kevin is definitely moving to Sharon on Feb. 1. I don't know if I already told you about this, so it might not be news. Anyway, you know that the whole thing had been kind of up in the air and vague as to when and if he would be moving down here. I was starting to feel that he would soon be so settled into his comfortable apartment and job in Portland that it would be nigh unto impossible for him to overcome the inertia and move. Last week I had a long conversation with him on the phone and expressed a lot of my doubts and misgivings. I suggested that he should try to move down here by the end of January.

        I was pretty bummed out, because it seemed to me that Kevin had lost the impetus that was propelling him to continue Mirage Studios, and it was looking like the whole Turtles thing would go up in smoke, just as it was starting to take off. Well, the next day I was moping around the house when I got a surprise call from Kevin, who informed me that he had made up his mind to go for it, and come down to Sharon. Needless to say, I was quite happy with his decision. He's already given his notice at the sandwich shop (he'll be able to work there through the end of February), and he'll be coming down here on a bus on January 1! Yahoo!!! No we can really start to smoke.

       I'm enclosing a Xerox of a cartoon that appeared in this week's issue of the Comics Buyer's Guide which may be incomprehensible to you, and for good reason -- it is an "in-joke" about current comics. But the obvious reason I am sending it to you is that it features none other than the turtles! As far as I know, this is their first published appearance outside of our book and done by someone other than ourselves. Neat, huh? In that same issue of the Guide there is an ad which speaks for itself; I'm enclosing a copy of it for you."

      [Looking back, I can see how Kevin may have been having second thoughts. After all, this was a pretty big move, away from a comfortable, known life and employment, and a big leap of faith that this Turtles/Mirage Studios thing was going to have "legs". It could have turned out to be the classic "flash in the pan", and then where would he be? Stuck in the wilds of northwest Connecticut, looking for another job.

       In the end, he did make the choice to move to Sharon, and the rest is history. I tend to think it was the right choice... but of course I am biased. 

       Detail note: The timeline in this sentence:

        "He's already given his notice at the sandwich shop (he'll be able to work there through the end of February), and he'll be coming down here on a bus on January 1!"

       ... doesn't seem to make much sense. I suspect I inadvertently flipped the months around, because in another letter dated February 25, I mention Kevin arriving in Sharon on February 1. -- PL