Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles "frontispieces".
"Tales" is an anthology style series Mirage created to supply Turtle demand and also have fun making more contained or off beat stories. Every single issue opens with this Twilight Zone-esque frontispiece by one of the Mirage crew and their friends where the Turtles and chums wax philosophical at you and end on the unfortunately Vans and Candy line "Let me tell you a story..."
First one ever by Kevin Eastman!
And Eastman again with Ryan Brown. Even though the early Mirage Turtles were never especially distinct from one another, the "Ya" makes it feel like this is Raph with Leo's swords. Wonder what happened.
Ryan Brown and someone else who's signature I sadly can't make out (maybe either Jim Lawson or Eric Talbot, tributed to Jack Kirby. Of note: first appearance of long time TMNT enemy the Rat King!
No signature. Maybe Jim Lawson again? Oh well. I just like this is the logic behind why the Mirage universe is so full of superheroes they have their own secret hospital but the Turtles have to both hide from the world AND wear masks.
Ryan Brown and Eric Talbot. First appearance of Leatherhead! I assume today's Turtle is talking to the alligators.
Can't make out the signature sadly, but their work is gorgeous. It may be Simon Bisley of Lobo fame and Raph/Casey: Bodycount infamy, but don't quote me on that. It's always hard to go wrong with TMNT and dinosaurs.
And now we're onto Tales volume 2, one of the most eclectic, occasionally haunting and often lovingly bonkers Turtles series. It is my veryiest favourite! First frontpiece by Jim Lawson. I love the zig zag way the characters draw your eyes, with Don looking right at us.
Peter Laird! It's a shame Mirage never made any of these into posters. God, look at that wood.
Eric Talbot. The story Raph's telling us is how a Foot clan mystic uses the worm clone Shredder from Return to New York to reincarnate Shredder as a giant shark man. Because this is Ninja Turtles.
Michael Dooney, who also did some covers for the SNES video games! First part of Leonardo: Blind Sight, a mini series Jim Lawson does mostly in white silhouettes about Leo coping with blindness. It's gorgeous but has a weird ending. Might blog someday. Meanwhile aww, Shadow!
Chris Henderson with inks by Dan Berger. This handsome fellow is Cha Ocho, Leo's rival introduced in vol 4. This is the story of how Leo gave him that scar, by Archie's Dean Clarrian and Chris Allan. It is a...very Archie TMNT story.
Michael Dooney. Shadow's a big Hello Kitty and Hellboy fan apparently. Also think that plush toy in the corner is Fluffy Brockelton, one of the stars from Dooney's own Mirage series Gizmo!
Michael Gaydos. Kinda sad Leatherhead can't use the Scottish version because oh my god can you imagine a giant alligator man just bellowing "GANG AFT A-GLEY!" in the sewers?
A.C Farley. This is the issue where Mikey has to cope with the death of his sadly under utilised cat, Klunk, and my brain is broken because I keep remembering Splinter's "lonley warrior" as "Potion seller"
William Porter, editor of the UK TMNT magazine at the time! Also that "My name is Donatello and this is what I think about" tag is going to show up a lot whenever Steve Murphy is writing the story of the week. It's a cool line!
D'Israeli. Think the colouring for the IDW reprint takes away a lot of the atmosphere and also makes the boys stick out like sore thumbs. Of course if they had a night time pallet they'd have to use it all the time, so...
Keiron Dwyer. For context, Leo owes a monkey god a favour and their choice of repayment is plucking four versions of Leo from diffrent points in time to make sure he's born. In the course of this adventure the Leo's save Moses from crocodiles.
Fernard Pinto. This is a cute story about Casey and Shadow opening up to each other about the absence of Gabriel, her late biological mother, and also Mikey and a gang of Rat J. Fink hot rodding ghosts are there.
Sean Wang. It's a nice and moody piece made inadvertently funny by how seriously Don takes reading blogs on the internet in 2005.
Dave White. At some point it was decided Raph should have a phobia of bugs. Far as I know it first showed up in an episode of the 2K3 show, but I dunno if that's where it came from or it was a Mirage invention, but it's persisted with the character across incarnations.
Derek Fridolfs.
"My name is Donatello, and I condescend to hopelessly lost normal turtles in the sewers!"
Steve Rolston. This issues one of my favourites, despite the fact I don't really like attempts to make the origin story more serious, but the plot is a one in a million idea: Splinter and the Turtles visit Homato Yoshi's old home in Japan to pay their respects...and it's haunted!
Stephen Sims.
That play on the "Let Me Tell You a Story" tag is because this is the 20th issue of volume 2! To celebrate Mirage changes it up and does three stories this time. Maybe I'll ramble about them at some point, but rn I'm trying to keep this going.
Eric Theriault, first in a trilogy of crossovers with the C.O.W. Boys or Moomasa! Sadly not reprinted in colour by IDW for probable rights reasons, which is shame, they are incredibly charming stories. Alas, we have to contend ourselves with Mikey's socialist milk thoughts.
Eric Talbot, who's also on lettering this issue! It deals with the return of the Turtles friend Gosei Hattori, a samurai who channels and draws on the spirits of his ancestors to kick ass, and Raph has a throwing star in his head, what the hell?
Mike Hawthorn continuing the trend of the boys having things sticking out of them.
And that, sadly, is the end of IDW's colour reprints. They only published 8 volumes, maybe due to lack of demand. Still, it's always nice to see the TMNT in their old black 'n' white.
George Flint, depicting Donatello venting his displeasure with the Beast Machine's cartoon.
Michael Dooney. This is based around April's story in Vol 4, where Peter Laird tries to get around years of not really being sure what to do with a character in a way that's...high concept if nothing else. She's currently taken up the mantle of resident masked vigilante Nobody!
Andy McDonald. This set up for Raph taking advantage of the TMNT being able to go out in public (long story) by going to bars and rubbing elbows with Cha Ocho. Remember him? Guy with a scar, wants to kill Leo?
Sophie Campbell, current writer on IDW's TMNT series and creator of two of my favourite comics, Wet Moon and Shadow Eyes!
Diego Jourdan. Tales' frontpieces are always neat because they feel like stories in their own right with absolutely no context, or at least just look cool. Jourdan does both!
Robert Atkins. Mirage Casey is neat because while he's the crazed hockey stick wielding loon we all loves, Mirage managed to pull off taking the character to far more serious places in a way big two comics almost never quite pull off.
Jim Webb. This is for the second story in the C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Masa team up trilogy!
Cute trivia: due to being busy with the 2006 CGI movie press and tie ins, Mirage inadvertently forgot to credit Webb in this issue itself, making sure to give him his due in the next. Aww!
Christian Colbert. The issue itself is by Archie TMNT team Dean Clarrian and Chris Allan, a story of Splinter and the Rat-King inspired by a conversation they once had in an elevator ride during an Anthrocon. "Make of that what you will," indeed.
Mike Lariccia. This is the first TMNT story from writer Tristian Jones, who is trying to be Brian Michael Bendis -so hard.-
Sophie Campbell again! What a perfect pissy teen Shadow.
Michael Dooney, presenting Leonardo's Adventures in Babysitting.
Antonio Montavlo. Dig the idea of an enemy reflected in Leo's rear sword, it's a really good spin on that idea! This story is all about his love affair with Indigenous superhero Radical and her traumatising death at the hands of her archenemy Complete Carnage. It sure...happens.
Long time Mirage man Michael Dooney! He does the next couple and we're gradually approaching the point he'll do all of them until the series' final issue.
Lookit dat rowbit head. Whadda cool lookin' rowbit.
@Charlotte Would have to check some publishing dates, but they even had her (or a version with the serial numbers filed off) appear in some comic strips in an indy published 90's furry anthology series.
It gets even more interesting if there's any truth to the rumours Clarrian and Allan are apparently pseudonyms for Mirage staffers working of the book so it'd feel more like a Turtle series.
Leo'Jet Ski Fuel'nardo
Charlotte Ariel Finn