Exclusive Interview: Kevin Eastman Raps on 25 Years of Turtles Magic

25 years ago, in a humble pizzeria, two artists gave birth to four ninjas that would change the way we looked at Turtles forever. Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael – aka The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – captivated both adults and children around the world. The phenomena, born from the napkin sketches of Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman, has seen made its way into several mediums over the past quarter-century. Comic books, a hit cartoon in the 1980s, live action movies, a relaunched cartoon in 2003, and a CG movie in 2007 have all been graced by the visages of those four heroic Turtles.

The Turtles franchise just “shellebrated” 25 years of shell-kicking ninja action with the 27 episode release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Season 7, available for the first-time ever on DVD. All four DVDs sets feature different episodes from Season 7 and a Mini-Classic Turtles Action Figure!

Recently, we had a chance to catch up with TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman, currently the owner, editor and publisher of Heavy Metal magazine. We talked about 25 years of Turtles magnificence, and his upcoming work on a new Heavy Metal anthology feature, which is guaranteed to raise a few eyebrows when you hear the details.

Congratulations on 25 years.

K. Eastman: Oh man, thank you very much. Much appreciated. Who would have thought it, especially me [laughs]?!

It’s been 25 years, or probably more since you first did that sketching in that pizza store. How does it feel to have created such a large phenomenon?

K. Eastman: It’s hard to find the words to describe it. When you think back even beyond the first drawing, a kid reading comic books. Speaking for both Peter and I, we were both the same kind of geeky kids reading comic books - writing and drawing our own comic books. We had this fantasy of, “Wouldn’t that be the greatest job in the world to be comic book artists?” You get beaten up by your parents, “Well that’s nice, but you need to get a real job…blah blah blah… [laughs].”
A couple of sketches and a commitment to really do a comic book, and say, “Well if I never do anything else in my whole life, here’s a comic book. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I’ve done one.” That was amazing enough. To have the fact that the first issue sold out, that we continued to get interest. That we had to actually come up with an idea for an issue two and issue three. The fact that those then sold well enough that by issue five we were selling almost 100,000 copies an issue.
Again, speaking for both Peter and I, that was really a dream come true. We were able to afford – you know – rent and eat and all that stuff – and to draw comic books[joint laughter]. Again always even then thinking, “Well, this is really great. But, who knows how long it’s going to last. We’re just going to ride this wave as long as we can because it’s pretty cool.

Another year goes by, and half of Hollywood seems to be chasing us around. “You’re idea is so great it can go far beyond comic books.” To which we laughed. They said, “No, no there’s going to be toys, animated TV cartoons and who knows maybe even movies.” Not to sound completely naïve, but we were smart enough then that we were aware of heroes that we had, like Jack Kirby, and people like that who had their creations either taken from them or abused. It’s just the way that the corporate systems were. We really held on tight to own and control our creation: trademark and copyright. We were probably a little cocky because we were actually making money. Not a lot, but enough to say, we really didn’t think it could anything else but a comic book. But, we’ll entertain the idea and see where it goes.

Of all the different iterations of the Turtles, I remember when I was like 6 or 7 getting the martial arts training manuals thinking I was the Karate Kid.

K. Eastman: [laughs]

What was your favorite version? Was it the originals, obviously you’re always going to love the originals. But, did you like the first cartoon, the new cartoon, the new movie or the live action? What was your favorite moment in Turtle history?

K. Eastman: It’s funny because I often refer to each one of those things. Whether you talk about the original black & white, which is as you clearly stated is very near and dear. Each of those different “planets,” – when we started working on the animation – was kind of exciting. We knew the comics were written for ourselves, for an older audience.

Although, that seemed to resonate more with kids. But when we started working on the animation, we knew we were writing it for a much younger audience. Either we came up with the idea or approved it or disapproved it. [That includes] all the changes: whether it’s the different colored bandanas or softening up the origin. [It was] the first time we had to think about it for a specific audience and we really enjoyed the early-animated episodes. We can separate them out them and say, “That’s for kids, but we’re still always going to keep the black and white comic.”

By the time we arrived at the opportunity to do the first movie that was really amazing. I felt we got to share the best of both worlds. We wanted to and fortunately Steve Barron at the helm, the director of the first movie, marked out pages, stories, and lines of dialogue out of the original comic book, Pete and I did. He said, “Let’s pull as much as we can from the real comic so we don’t lose those fans, but lets also make sure we have enough of the things the kids enjoy from the animated series.” Try and come up with something that the parents can take the kids to and the parents aren’t bored to tears. There’s something for both audiences. So, I’d say out of all the versions there’s a wonderful part of each, but I really liked the first Turtle movie. It was an amazing tribute to our original creation.

I agree. I’m just going to let you know. That opening scene with the wallets being stolen. It was one of my favorite movie scenes. It was just so ominous.

K. Eastman: [laughs]

I thought, “Wow, this is like the original comic.” I was really happy with that.

K. Eastman: Thank you so much.

At a certain point you separated from Laird to focus on Heavy Metal Magazine. Could you tell me a little more about Heavy Metal?

K. Eastman: It’s interesting. I kind of blame Heavy Metal for making me buy it. I say this in the kindest and most wonderful way. When I first started reading Heavy Metal, it came out in 1977, I got to the point where I was in my middle years of High School. I was bored to tears with what most mainstream comics were offering. Spider-Man. Batman. But, I still loved the art form of telling stories in comics. Here you have this whole amazing world of European artists, and some of the top underground (artists): the Richard Corbin, the Von Bodins. Which lead me to discover thinks like Rip Off Press, the Freak Brothers, Kitchen Sink Comics. I got to the point where I thought I had the talent to start my own comics and submit stories. I submitted to all underground comics. I wanted to self publish. I didn’t want to draw somebody else’s character. I didn’t want to draw Spider-Man. I didn’t want to draw Batman. I wanted to do my own stories and self-publish them. When we did the Turtles, thanks to discovering all those things at Heavy Metal, we published the Turtles and thus maintained control. And thus received the rewards of the success of the Turtles, which then allowed me to buy Heavy Metal magazine [laughs]. It was kind of cool to have that nice evolution and payback. It was almost this weird source of destiny.

Peter and I, we started working together in 1983 - between the years of all the original 25 comics or so we did side by side. Then we spent from 87-88, instead of drawing ninety percent of the time and doing business ten percent of the time, we were doing business ninety percent of the time and drawing ten percent of the time, even though we were still very creative in our input on the TV shows.

By the time we got to say 1997, having close to fifteen years of doing nothing but eating, sleeping and breathing Turtles – and thankful for every moment of it – it was stifling in a sense. The Turtles were always intended to be a one-shot comic book before each of us went off and explored other creative ideas that we had. Around ‘97 when the Turtles’ franchise really slowed down, I took that opportunity to jump into all Heavy Metal stuff. Around that time, 1996, we released the original Ivan Reitman produced Heavy Metal movie, which had great success – sold two million copies on VHS. We had a foundation to begin production on a second movie, so I wanted to focus all my time and energy on that.

Peter and I agreed. I said, “Look you buy me out of the creative responsibilities. You deal with anything that comes along for the Turtles creatively and I get a little piece off the top in whatever comes down the road.” And, we did. Fortunately for both of us, they came back in the early 2000s. We continued that basic pattern until 2005/2006, when the Imagi movie came out. Based on some other things I had going on, Peter made me an offer to buy out the rest of my interest in the Turtles and run the whole ship himself. I thought he had been doing such a fantastic job. I felt it was wise for all parties. By then it had been seven or eight years since I’d been chest deep in Turtle business.

A lot of people say, “It’s amazing this universe that you built.” Yes, it’s true. But, then you think that the entire foundation is built off of about 20 comics we did together in the mid-80s. Everything else sort of sprung from that original series. That’s pretty phenomenal when you think about it in that respect as well.

At one point you mentioned getting more into directing, and moving Heavy Metal assets into movies and animated CG movies. Could you tell me more about that direction?

K. Eastman: Sure. What’s interesting is that after doing Heavy Metal 2000, which was not the movie I hoped it could have been. When I produced that movie I didn’t want to recreate what Ivan Reitman had done so well in the early 80s with Heavy Metal the anthology format. So, I went with a one single story format. The fans reminded me when the movie came out that I should gone with the anthology format. That’s been the staple of the magazine since day one; each issue has had multiple stories from multiple different creative teams.

I moved past Heavy Metal 2000, and worked through a couple different scenarios. I had got to a point when we were close to signing a contract with Columbia/Tri-Star to do Heavy Metal Unloaded. It was an anthology picture, a low budget direct to DVD picture. Then I wanted to springboard off some other ideas I had done with the magazine. Things I wanted to do personally and creatively: a series a Heavy Metal Presents. Heavy Metal Presents Fistful of Blood was a live-action picture that I would direct. Heavy Metal Los Angeles was an animated picture we developed with Mike Young Animation. We had a couple other things we were moving forward on creatively.

During that same period of three or four years, I developed this great relationship with Blur Animation, located in Venice, California. Tim Miller, from Blur, brought David Fincher to the table, who was completely freakin’ out about the opportunity to do a bigger budgeted Heavy Metal anthology. In a mutual formed partnership, I shelved the other Heavy Metal projects. We’ve now built this pretty incredibly developed property that will be going forward rather quickly in the coming months after a year in development. Besides having David executive producing and directing one of the segments we’ve brought on people like Zack Snyder, Gore Verbinski and Mark Osborne, co-director of Kung-Fu Panda. Those are the names I can tell you that have officially committed to be listed as directors in the picture. I’ve got probably two or three others that I will be jaw-dropping when I get permission to tell you those. It’s a $50 million dollar 3D animated anthology film, with just about the coolest bunch of guys, including David. Pretty excited to let a lot more details out of the bag, but I’m told to keep my mouth shut for the moment [joint laughter].

But, you talk about Zack and Gore and the anthology and David and that’s going to be great to have that opportunity to work with that kind of talent. And, especially Blur. If you don’t know Blur’s animation work, just go to blur.com and you’ll see why we want to work with them so badly.

How often do you develop new characters and assets?

K. Eastman: Those things develop all the time. I have a studio full of sketchbooks and ideas, from one end to the other. It’s an interesting process where I get different levels of excitement and creativity depending on the project and who I work with. Like, when I first started working with Simon Bisley, almost 15 years ago. Besides the first Heavy Metal movie and a Fistful of Blood, we did another project called Melting Pot. We’ve done this one called “The Very Angry Seven.” “Biz and Buzz.” “Thump N’ Guts.”

I get a certain energy feeding off of another artist and working together. I’ve always had these personal projects that have just taken more time to develop in between so many others. I produced a “Highlander” animated movie with Joe Pearson, called “Highlander: The Search for Vengeance.” Executive Producing an animated “War of the Worlds” picture, right now, also with Joe.

There always seems to be too many things going on to get one. Back in the day you would spend 8-10 hours just drawing Turtles all day [joint laughter]. Now, you spread it out to two hours here two hours there on a variety of projects. I’ve got a project that I will start serializing that Heavy Metal will publish as a comic this fall. It’s called “White Ronin Blues.” In it’s current state it’s about 500 pages long. It’s something I’ve been working on for about 5 or 6 years, just a piece at a time. Waiting on the time to draw it as well as the story elements to come together.

I think that’s the most fantastic thing I’ve been blessed with. By being an artist, if you can think it, you can draw it. And, that creates limitless possibilities of either great ideas or really bad drawings.

Which Turtle do you find to be most similar to your personality?

K. Eastman: Raphael. For sure. 100 percent. It’s funny, we’re asked often where did the ideas for the different personalities of each of the Turtles (come from). In the schoolyard when I was a kid, you always had the leader type. Whether he was bigger, or stronger or smarter – he was the leader of the group. Then you had the comedian who was always cutting jokes at the right time and the wrong time, Michelangelo. Then you had the geeky - sort of techno guy - that had all this useless information in his head [laughs], Donatello. Then you had the guy who was a bit of a hot head. Pretty passionate. Could fly off the handle. But always the guy you kind of wanted on your side in a fight. And, that was Raphael.

I think the way Peter and my style of creating and doing business worked well was because he was Donatello and I was Raphael. I would get up on the table and jump and scream, and Peter would say, “Well, now calm down. If we do it this way we can do that.” And, I’m like, “Oh, yeah. Ok.” [joint laughter].
It’s fascinating to me, that in every fan everybody has their own favorite turtle for their own personal reasons.

Are you going to SDCC this year?

K. Eastman: Wouldn’t miss it. I’ve been going since 1985. It’s funny in the coolest possible sense. Earlier this year, out of the 20 some odd years that I’ve been going, the Comic Con officially invited me this year [joint laughter]. “We’d like to officially invited you to the San Diego Comic Con.” It was through Fae Desmond, who has been there since I’ve been going. I called her up and said, “Fae, I’m coming anyway. I come every year. I’ve been coming since 1985. I come with Heavy Metal and we set up a big thing.” She goes, “I know. I know. I know. We never officially invited you and we thought it would be nice.” It is honestly. I take it with much respect. I think it’s just kind of funny. Of course, we’ll be there. Especially for the 25th Anniversary. It was very cool, and made me exceptionally proud.

Are you going to be there this year?

Definitely, wouldn’t miss it.

K. Eastman: You must stop by. At the Heavy Metal booth we’ll have too many crazy-fun-cool things going on all at once. Amongst other things, there’s the Lionsgate 25th Anniversary DVD which is just an awesome dynamite package. Mirage is putting out the original 560 page collection of the stories Pete and I did. I’m doing a collection of what I’m calling Kevin’s favorite stories. It’s about 180 pages of the original Raphael story in color. A lot of stuff that I either did all myself or worked with Mark Body or Richard Corbin. We’re doing it as a hardcover exclusive for the show.

The funniest part of the 25th anniversary is that I find myself going through these draws of old photos and sketches I haven’t seen in 25 years. It’s kind of trippy to think that I’m here now talking to you about the Turtles after 25 years.

I’m amazed I’m talking to you to.

[joint laughter]

There was a time you were in New York, I must have been 6 or 7 waiting for an autograph, but the line was so long, my parents just said, “You’re going home!”

K. Eastman: Oh No! [joint laughter] I have to tell you that you just reminded me that these days I have these really great dads coming by with there kids. And, they say, “Dude, I watch the Turtles when I was a kid now I watch them with my son.” First I feel highly complimented. Then I feel old.

[joint laughter]

K. Eastman: It’s pretty cool that it caught on with them the first time and now there’s a whole new crowd of kids that find it cool as well.

Thank you so much time for talking to us today.

K. Eastman: It’s my pleasure.