‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ Returns At IDW

IDW Publishing seems to be making a big splash at San Francisco’s WonderCon this weekend, and one of their big announcements was that they will be bringing back Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to the world of comics this Summer, with an new series of comics and graphic novels based on the original series. The comics series will be just the first part of an on-going plan to return the Turtles to prominence. Nickelodeon actually bought the rights to the Turtles franchise last year for a cool $60 million and there are also plans for a new CGI show to air on Nickelodeon starting in late 2012.

TMNT has been around since 1984, when it started as a small black and white comic created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. The series was one of the most successful independent comics ever, and exploded into the mainstream with a series of popular movies and an animated TV show. The Turtles have continued to see publication throughout the years, and have been in several more TV shows and movies. The comic started out as a parody of some of the biggest comics of the early 80s, such as Marvel’s X-Men, and a lot of Frank Miller’s work. The series was first published at Eastman and Laird’s own Mirage Studios, but has shifted publishers a number of times, going through Image comics, Archie comics, before returning to Mirage for its most recent run, which ended once Nickelodeon bought the property. IDW will be a great home for the Turtles, as they have been releasing some great products over the last couple of years, and have become easily one of the best independent publishers.

In addition to the new series, readers will also be treated to a remastered version of the original series. I’m sure fans of the series as well as new readers will be excited to see read the series again, and having read some of IDW’s other collections, I’m sure that the collection will look great. I only wish we knew who would be working on the new series, but hopefully we will hear who is planned to take over the creative duties on the series before too long.