COWABUNGA, DUDE

Posted By: Glenn HaumanPosted On:

In answer to repeated questions:

Yes. It’s true. I’ve been approached by Dreamwave about doing a new “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” series tying in with the new animated TV show. And I said I would do it because, frankly, my kids wouldn’t have it any other way. My three elder daughters are huge TMNT fans (Caroline hasn’t weighed in with an opinion) and made it clear there would be dire–DIRE–consequences if I passed up the opportunity.

Further details will be forthcoming as soon as Dreamwave irons out the final kinks with the Turtles folks.

PAD

42 comments on “COWABUNGA, DUDE”

  1. That is so cool! i think i’ll be adding a new comic to my collection! Marvel really should get you back onto the hulk! its soooooooooooooo dull these days!!!

  3. Say, is Stick or the Hand mentioned in the Daredevil movie? ‘Cause it’d be funny if some people watched the movie and thought it was ripping off the TMNT. 🙂

  5. actually the other coolest thing about that statement is that…after all this time..Ariel is now considered an OLDER daughter…shes got to be loving that!! 🙂

  6. So this is going to be one of the TMNT alternate universes, right? Because last I heard the Real title was being done at Image.

    And these alternate universe/tie-in titles are never well-recieved by the hardcore TMNT(comic) fans. Of course, they had Archie Comics do the last set, so you’d almost expect that…

    Hey, any chance you’ll take over Archie, PAD? Then maybe they can stop reprinting 30 year old strips so they won’t have to make new stuff.

  7. Do I recall a story you told that Marvel once-upon-a-time had an opportunity for involvement with this property (through you) and passed it up?

  10. Peter David, writing about violent characters with green skin? I’m not sure I can picture that… 🙂

  11. I would love to see some kind of unified list of persons in artistic fields who’ve taken on jobs specifically because they were threatened with great doom from their kids/grandkids/nieces if they didn’t jump for it immediately.

    Two come to mind: Richard Harris’ granddaughter said she’d never speak to him again if he didn’t take the role of Dumbledore, and Viggo Mortensen, who’d never read “Lord of the Rings,” committed over the phone to jumping on a plane and spending 15 months as Aragorn, on the very insistent say-so of his son.

  12. No, Marvel didn’t have an opportunity at the Turtles and passed it up. Marvel (through the Epic office) was actually interested in pursuing it. Eastman and Laird chose not to go with Marvel.

    PAD

  13. Well I don’t have time to look up the names, but the woman who played the mother in waterboy did it because her kids/grandkids loved adam sandler.

    I never read any tmnt comics but I did watch a lot of the show back in the day. I havn’t fallowed any of it’s story for a long time though. Anyone want to toss out a site that has info about hte story thus far. Though it may go a completly new direction now. (not at all a bad thing).

  14. I would love to see some kind of unified list of persons in artistic fields who’ve taken on jobs specifically because they were threatened with great doom from their kids/grandkids/nieces if they didn’t jump for it immediately

    Besides the two mentioned,the story had been passed that Robin Williams returned to voice the Genie in ALADDIN AND THE FORTY THEIVES on the urging of his child. Personally, I’ve never really believed this; since it is Disney, the place where nobody is unhappy (even if they are in litigation against the House of Mouse), and since FORTY THEIVES was yet another direct-to-video piece of mediocrity, I tend to think that the corny ‘my young one begged me to do it’ story was a bit of press agent puffery.

    Glad to hear, Mr. David, that you have another iron in the fire, and I hope it goes well for you. I must admit to being one who will probably pass on it; I quickly wearied of the whole ‘cowabunga, dude’ thing in the ’80’s and hearing that it is about to resurge does not send me dancing in the streets.

  16. According to what I’ve heard, the plan is for the new TMNT cartoon to be closer to the original B&W comics in tone, characterization and details (Splinter is a mutated rat, not human, for example). Presumably the spinoff comic will follow suit.

    In other words, give it a chance before assuming it’ll be nothing but pizza and surfer-dude dialogue…

  17. This is wonderful news! It has me excited about Turtles again. I’m kinda surprised that Dreamwave approached you. They seem to have a track record of putting their own home grown talent on books. Isn’t long time Transformers writer Simon Furman the only other veteran talent working for them?

    I hope, PAD, that you don’t allow yourself to be weighed down by tying in to the cartoon. Furman’s Transformers stories were good because they weren’t in continuity with the cartoon, allowing him to go in interesting long- term directions.

  18. gee, not only would this be a book about violent, green characters, they would be a team of teenage violent, green characters, many of whom can be classified under fruedian psycho-anylitic terms.

    so, hulk and young justice rolled into one?

    i’ll finally have an excuse to pre-order comics again.

  19. According to what I’ve heard, the plan is for the new TMNT cartoon to be closer to the original B&W comics in tone, characterization and details (Splinter is a mutated rat, not human, for example). Presumably the spinoff comic will follow suit.

    In other words, give it a chance before assuming it’ll be nothing but pizza and surfer-dude dialogue…

    I said nothing about the tone of the comic. What is important is the continuity. Now, I am assuming that this series will not be a direct continuation of the comic book series, correct? It will be a reboot, right? Because if it was a true continuation, it wouldn’t be marketable to new viewers, since Shredder would be dead and Raphael would be heading The Foot. (for that matter, did Splinter ever die? I remember there were hints that he was going to die sometime soon back in Vol2, but I never really followed the Image title). What I’m trying to say is that I’d be estatic if PAD had landed the Real Turtles, but it seems that he’s stuck with something like “X-Men Adventures”, which is a dirty rotten shame. I’ll still read

    it, though, and probably enjoy it.

    But it’d be so much better the other way.

  22. Wow. That, I was not expecting. I read the first TMNT arc years ago and thought it was okay but stopped there. But if anyone could get me to buy this thing it would be Peter.

    Good luck on the new assignment!

    Shawn

  23. I still remember the Archie TMNT. I maintain to this day that it was fantastic (well, ok, only the first 25 issues. I can’t find anything after that). It started as an adaptation of the pilot for the cartoon, then immediately after whisked itself off in a completely different direction, leaving April O’Neil’s coworker’s at the newspaper well behind them. The comic had a very pro-environment message, but it wasn’t thick enough to take away from my enjoyment of the stories.

    I look forward to your interpretation, Peter. I know that everyone will be in character, since I find that’s what you are most consistent with in your writing — whichever characterisations you’ll be using (The original comic, the cartoon, the Archie comic, the Image comic, the movie and the tv series with the girl turtle) of the many options you’ve got, or if you’ll be redefining the characters yourself. I’ll just have to trust that you’ve got some good stories for them brewing in your head. Kick some shell.

  25. Actually, Chris, my comments weren’t directed at your comments; if you look around there are others who are lumping this project in with the worst aspects of the ’80s cartoon (or just the ’80s in general), and that’s what I was responding to.

    Actually, I was kind of surprised by how far the Archie spinoff was able to go; the “Cyber TMNT” miniseries was surprisingly dark, even for an out-of-continuity dark future one-off.

  26. I’ll be buying it for my son. He’s now 17, but he started his comic book collection at the age of 5 with the Archie version of the Turtles. During the years we were able to amass a complete collection, including the many spin-offs. He still loves the Archie version, but not the TV shows (live or animated), and he’s asked me to stop buying the new B&W version being published. However, when I told him Peter David is writing a new version, he got excited because he’s a big fan of Young Justice.

    –your pal, Hoy

  27. Wow, I’ll definitely buy it from the first issue… I was a fan of the TV series, but I don’t have read any TMNT comic-book before(well, actually a few comic-books which were adaptations from the TV series), so I hope I can understand the new TV adaptation series.

    (Sorry about my poor English)

  29. Whoohoo!

    I can’t wait for this comic, mister David.

    I’ve been a TMNT fan for almost my whole live and I’ve enjoyed your work on a lot of comics and I think you’ll be perfect for the TMNT cartoon based comic.

    Good luck,

    M

  31. Congratulations, PAD. May it outsell every Marvel book on the stands- and it just might. Boy, that’ll throw a wrench into Joe and Bill, won’t it?

  34. I stopped buying the first B&W series after a couple of issues because it got boring.

    never touched the Archie comics.

    I liked the cartoon, not great, but cool at the time.

    loved the first movie. it was better than it should’ve been.

    The second movie was everything I was afraid the first would be.

    I was probably going to buy this new book if it looked at least decent.

    why?

    My 8 year old has just recently discovered the turtles in a big way.

    first the movies, then the cartoon and now the toys.

    And now, with Mr. David writing, I’ll be reading the comics with him.

    This is going to be great.

  35. The new comic from Mirage does not pick up from the 3rd(Image’s run) volume’s storyline, but is rather a jump to the Turtles’ “current” lives(despite the title still including the word “teenage”); so Raph isn’t the new Shredder, Leo still has two eyes, Splinter never turned into a mutant bat, and Don isn’t a half-cyborg, etc etc. According to the folks at Mirage, this Dreamwave comic’ll be based off the new cartoon series, which is mostly based off the original storylines of Mirage volume 1. So we now have two new comic series to look forward to every month: a Mirage continuation for all the fans, and a refresh of the original series for both original fans and newcomers :))

  36. No, Marvel didn’t have an opportunity at the Turtles and passed it up. Marvel (through the Epic office) was actually interested in pursuing it. Eastman and Laird chose not to go with Marvel.

    “Once the complete comic book was finished, they had to find a publisher for the work. The guys tried unsuccessfully to find someone willing to print the title, much to their dismay… and eventual good fortune!”

    http://www.ninjaturtles.com/origin/origin.htm

    Apocryphal?

  37. For Robb P.

    Nope, no Stick, Hand or Chaste mentioned in either the novelization or comic adaption of the movie. It would be cool if they were in the sequel though.

  38. Wow this is awesome news indeed. I’m a long time fan of the Mirage TMNT. IMHO it was one of the most well written, deep, and action packed comic book series that I know of. Please do not confuse the orignal cartoon with the Mirage comics. If your only knowledge of the TMNT is the old cartoon then you have a lot to learn.

    I’m psyched because within a few months there will be 3 (quality) TMNT comics out. The first is Mirage Vol. 4 which has the Turtles in their 30s, the second is Vol. 2 of Tales of the TMNT, which will be published by Mirage, and will cover the years between Vol. 2 and Vol. 4, and finally the Dreamwave version. Of course I can’t neglect to mention the kickass looking new cartoon based on the Mirage comics? This is too much my head might explode.

    Well all gushing aside, I do have two quick questions? What will the tone of the Dreamwave TMNT be? How closely will it stick to the new show?

    Thanks from a longtime fan.

  41. I just want to do a comment that I just love your ninja turtles movie video I think its really really adoreable and I just love Raphael in it as well so I hope you do another one real soon. From Laura McIntyre

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