Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Comics In The Clear Through 2010

Wednesday's $60 million Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sale to Viacom seemed like a pretty bodacious deal for the franchise's creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, but given that Viacom has the rights to, well, everything, it left one nagging comics question dangling in the ether:

What's going to happen to Mirage Publishing (Eastman and Laird's original outlet for the turtles)?

I reached out to Mirage Managing Editor Dan Berger, who was happy to pass on the skinny:

"Peter maintained the right to publish 18 TMNT comic books per year via the direct market. However, Mirage can no longer publish trade paperbacks, so the 'Mirage Universe' book that we solicited for in October has unfortunately been canceled. At this time, Peter plans to publish 'Tales of the TMNT' to May, 2010. Beyond that, there are no concrete plans."

So there you have it TMNT fans, straight from the Mirage's mouth, as it were.

Are you a regular "Tales of the TMNT" reader? What're your thoughts on the series and it's tentative schedule? What would you like to see happen to the comic?