Big news in the comic world - Nickelodeon just recently bought the rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Global property from The Mirage Group and 4Kids Entertainment, Inc. for a whopping $60 million dollars! While it may be good news in a way, it is kind of a bummer to me. What many people probably do not know is that the Turtles were not originally set in NY; they were actually based and created in North Hampton Massachusetts, which is only about 30 
minutes from where I grew up. I have all of my Mirage Studios TMNT comics to this very day (actually, I have all of my comics still), most of them signed by many of the artist and writers involved with the original series, including Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, the creators of the Turtles and founders of Mirage Studios.I used to go to a comic store called Altered Earth Arts everyday when I was a kid, and that comic store was owned by Craig "A.C." Farley, someone who at the time had been doing covers for the compilation issues that came out every so often - a best of TMNT if you will. So anyway, he went on to do a few of his own issues (writing and drawing) for the series, and the very first one he did was clearly set in Chicopee center (where I'm from), and one of the main young characters had a striking resemblance to yours truly (right down to the lines shaved on the side of my head)! There was even a moment where a bully beat up "my" character and that bully happened to look exactly like a guy that used to work at that same comic store. He was a big dude that would rough house my friends and I when we came in to buy comics, in playful (and non-sexual way...I think!) way, so it was fitting that he be the bully to punch "my" characters lights out.
So as you can see, I have a soft spot for the Turtles property (Totally Tubular Trailers?), and even if the movies and TV series were never nearly as cool or dark as the original Eastman and Laird creation, they were still a ton of fun. Knowing that such a majorly successful franchise/property was thunk up and created near where I grew up, and is now all but completely sold off is a little sad to me. Especially when I had some personal connections to that franchise/property in a lot of ways, so I feel like it's kind of mine. I am pretty selfish, however.I also wanna mention - the Dario Argento book by Mr. James Gracey that I just recently posted about has unfortunately been pushed back to an unknown date. Seems to happen with all the good shit, doesn't it? Anyway, hopefully it will be out sooner rather than later, and I will update you skanks if I hear anything else about a release date - as will James on his blog. If you are a fan of dope, or if you like bad-ass, and you are a fan of Argento, then head over to Amazon and give this little bitch a pre-order in support of dope, bad-ass, Argento-ness!
