It looks like Playmates isn't the only game in town for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures... at least if you don't mind them being only about 2" tall. Japan's TakaraTomy is adding the TMNT to its tradable ARTS line this spring, with four new figures based on the team's CGI animated Nickelodeon looks.
Yesterday, a few photos leaked of early designs from the upcoming Michael Bay produced live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film. Today, a picture has leaked showing all four turtles, possibly giving us a better idea of what the final design for the characters will be in the movie. And, before we get into anything else, we need to deal with one unavoidable fact: the turtles all have lips, at least two of them have human looking noses, and that is f***ing creepy.
Since essentially the very moment that the Michael Bay-produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie was public knowledge, it's been an object of intense fan skepticism. Would the characters look weird, what with their strange new origin story? What will the CGI/live action hybrid look like in action?
Well, there are now actual images of character designs for the turtles and a heavily-armored Shredder from the Jonathan Liebesman-directed movie in their pixel-perfect glory. Judge for yourself.
Season two of Nickelodeon's CG animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series has expanded the show's cast of characters significantly, but for as many hideous new mutants as it's introduced, the show's also welcomed a steady stream of new vehicles. Both figure prominently into the latest batch of Playmates products arriving in toy stores in the near future, as stores welcome new figures of Mutagen Man, Kirby Bat and a Squirrelanoid, plus vehicles like the Shell Flyer, the Grass Kicker and the Turtle Sub.
Between its new animated feature, launching The Simpsons sets and about a dozen other things, LEGO's got a lot going on this year. That's why it's a bit surprising to know that there won't just be one line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles LEGO sets this year, but two. Sets based on the upcoming live action/CGI hybrid TMNT film are in the works, of course, but are still largely shrouded in mystery. Box art for more sets based on Nickelodeon's CG animated series have surfaced, though, and... well, those are probably the ones most fans are going to be the most excited about.
Make your Monday brighter with today's links.
Waltz through the cut for Wednesday's links.
Many of the obituaries for actor James Avery, who died late Tuesday night at age 68, have focused on his work playing Uncle Phil on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
And while that show was certainly Avery's most visible role, he spent decades compiling an incredibly impressive voice acting resume, providing the voices for characters including Shredder on the 1980s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV series, War Machine/James Rhodes on the 1990s Iron Man and Spider-Man cartoons, and Sir Bryant on The Legend of Prince Valiant.
While Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is in the midst of a creative renaissance at IDW, with the current series making our own Best Comics of 2013 list, the publisher continues to release reprints and collections of stories that had been unavailable for years. Recently, IDW released a new hardcover edition of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: 25th Anniversary Collection, which was originally published in 2009 (the actual 25th anniversary) through co-creator Kevin Eastman’s Heavy Metal publishing house, re-mastering the artwork and providing some stories with color for the first time.
Unlike ComicsAlliance editor Caleb Goellner -- who seems to bleed green -- I’ve only read a few issues of the new series. I really, genuinely liked it, but felt like my memories of the original comics, if not the comics themselves, were better. For that same reason, I haven’t bought a single issue of IDW’s Classics reprints; just saw enough of the first collection to know that I didn't like the cold digital coloring. Really, I didn’t want to see TMNT with new eyes; I wanted it to remain great in my recollection, rather than diminished by the reality. I didn’t want to find out that literally the most important comic in my life was reduced to trash because of the passage of time and changes in perception.
Curiosity got the better of me.
Read on for today's Tuesday-fied links.