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I'm sure everybody remembers the Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles. They started in comic books, moved
on to cartoons, toys and any other type of
merchandising you could think of. They were
created and self published by Kevin Eastman and
Peter Laird. This was unique as, for once, the
creators received all the money coming from a
major success. This interview is with Peter Laird
who now owns the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
(TMNT) outright and has gone on to contribute to
the comic industry in other ways.
Jamie:
Peter Laird:
In North Adams, Massachusetts.
Jamie:
Did you read comic books growing up? If so
which ones do you most fondly remember?
Peter Laird:
Definitely -- comics were a big part of my life
from an early age. My parents would buy Archies
and Gold Keys and Dells for us, and maybe
sometimes a DC comic like Superman or Batman. I
loved reading them, and later on discovered Marvel
Comics (and most importantly Jack Kirby) through a
local store called New Englandiana, which was a
used bookstore with a small comics shelf in their
front window. It was about four feet wide and
generally piled about two feet deep with comics of
all types which could be bought for a dime
("Giant-Sized Annual"-type comics cost a quarter).
I think when I started buying original and reprint
versions of Kirby's "Fantastic Four" was when I
really started to look at comics as something more
than a pleasurable reading pastime, and started to
think that they were something I would like to do
professionally someday.
Jamie:
When did you know you wanted to become an
artist?
Peter Laird:
I always had a lot of fun drawing, from an early
age (I actually had a drawing in a local museum
show at age 5), but it was in high school that I
started to think I should look into drawing as a
career.
Jamie:
Did you have any day jobs to support yourself
prior to becoming a self sufficient artist?
Peter Laird:
The usual, working in various jobs to make ends
meet -- I did janitorial jobs, worked for an
optician, in a comics/used bookstore, and so on.
But they were all just to put bread on the table.
Jamie:
When and how did you meet Kevin Eastman?
Peter Laird:
Kevin and I met in Northampton, MA, back in 1981,
I think. He had moved from Maine to the
Northampton area to be with his girlfriend at the
Time, who was going to UMass in Amherst (about
seven miles from Northampton). When Kevin hooked
up with a local arts organization called The
Graphics Guild, they told him that his worked
reminded them of mine, and gave him my address.
Kevin wrote me a letter, I invited him over, and
we immediately hit it off, and decided right then
and there that we should work together.
Jamie:
Okay lets go over the creation of Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles for those that are new to it.
You and Kevin were taking turns thinking up the
silliest superhero idea ever. One of you came up
with the idea of TMNT and then decided to run with
it. Is that correct?
Peter Laird:
Sort of, but not exactly. The idea that one of us
individually "came up with the idea of TMNT" is
not accurate. Here's the brief rundown on what
happened: Kevin was sharing the house my wife and
I were renting, in Dover, NH in 1983. He and I
would spend most of our evenings sitting in our
small living room, watching bad TV shows and
drawing. When we started to get punchy from too
many hours of "The A-Team" or "Love Connection",
we would try to make each other laugh with some
kind of goofy gag or drawing. One night, Kevin
drew what he called a "ninja turtle", a somewhat
humanoid turtle standing on its hind legs, wearing
a mask and with nunchakus strapped to its
forearms. He showed it to me, and I thought it was
a riot. Of course I had to draw my own version,
which was similar but a little tweaked. Then Kevin
penciled a group shot of four of these critters,
which I inked and added "teenage mutant" to their
descriptive title. It was all good fun, and it
wasn't until the next day or a few days later that
we thought maybe this would be a fun concept to
build a comic book story around. So we banged
heads and came up with an origin story which would
explain the title, and away we went.
Jamie:
And then one of you borrowed some money off an
uncle to help get it published. Who's uncle and
how much money?
Peter Laird:
It was Kevin's uncle, and I think it was either
$1000 or $1200 -- money that was repaid to him
with excellent interest within the year.
Jamie:
How did the breakdown of duties go with TMNT?
Who wrote, who drew, inked, lettered, etc..
Peter Laird:
I remember that when we started to get noticed and
were either interviewed by reporters or questioned
at conventions, people just couldn't seem to wrap
their brains around the fact that, with the clear
exception of the lettering (which Kevin did for a
while until Steve Lavigne took over, sometime
around issue #4), we pretty much shared equally in
all the chores on the books. Here's how it worked:
First, we would talk about the story for the next
issue. Once we'd worked it out, making notes along
the way, Kevin would take that plot idea and do
small thumbnail breakdowns/layouts for each page,
which I would review and comment on, and sometimes
add to or subtract from (but not very often --
Kevin did GREAT layouts). From there, we would
take those roughs, enlarge them on a photocopier,
and use those enlargements to transfer, via light
table tracing, the roughs to the final original
Duo-Shade art paper (usually about 9" by 12").
Then we would do finished, detailed pencils,
swapping the pages back and forth so that we would
each have roughly the same amount of input on each
page. Around this time, I would take our rough
dialogue notes and do final dialogue, which Kevin
would then review much as I had his layouts.
Kevin would letter the pages, then we would start
inking and then toning, again at both those stages
swapping pages back and forth. It was an
unconventional way of working, but I think it
worked really well. For a while, anyway. It was
pretty simple when we were doing all the work in
the same house and in the same room -- it got a
little trickier when we were living in different
places.
Jamie:
I understand there was some counterfeiting
going on with early issues of TMNT, what can you
tell us about that?
Peter Laird:
I don't know the full extent of whatever
counterfeiting was done with the first issue (I
don't think any other issues of TMNT were deemed
worthy of counterfeiting), but apparently some
enterprising scumbag thought it would be a great
idea to actually reprint the first issue. I have
heard of these copies, but have never actually
seen one -- I understand that there are some
subtle color differences in the covers. But the
one counterfeit that I did encounter was pretty
sad and stupid. I was at a show in White Plains,
NY, and this kid came up to me with a first
edition he wanted me to sign. I felt really bad
for him when I had to tell him that it was NOT a
real first printing -- the loser who had sold it
to him had taken a second printing, whited out the
word "second" on the inside front cover (where we
had identified the second printings with the words
"second printing") and had actually written in
"first". Pathetic.
Jamie:
How did the whole Cartoon/Toys of TMNT come
about?
Peter Laird:
Like many things in life, it was a happy accident.
We were doing quite well with the TMNT comics, and
had started doing a little licensing of the
property on the side. One of the more successful
bits of licensing was a line of role-playing games
with a company called Palladium Books. As it so
happened, a licensing agent named Mark Freedman was
also doing business with them (he was representing
the owners of "Robotech") and he heard that
Palladium was also doing this thing called
"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles". Mark thought that
was a really wild name... it stuck in his head,
and not too long afterward, he tracked us down in
Northampton and offered his services as our
full-time licensing agent. We agreed, signed on
with his company, Surge Licensing, and the rest is
history. Mark did a fantastic job getting the TMNT
to be a household name.
Jamie:
I heard that the two of you wanted to make TMNT
toys. The toy companies said a cartoon was needed
first in order to sell the toys. The two of you
then, somewhat reluctantly, had a cartoon made and
the cartoon became a huge hit. You were then able
to sell a humongous amount of toys and anything
else that had TMNT on it. Is that accurate?
Peter Laird:
Not exactly. It's certainly true that, in general,
a big toy company like Playmates is not likely to
invest in a major toy line without a show of some
kind to help promote it. But I don't think we were
very "reluctant" to have a cartoon made -- if
there was any reluctance or resistance to that
idea, it was in the kinds of compromises we had to
accept to get that cartoon made, softening the
Turtles and so on. At that time, it was like a
dream come true to us, to have this big company
not only wanting to make action figures of our
crazy little characters, but prepared to pay us a
lot of money to do so! I can honestly say that
while it was cool to have the show, what I was
really happiest and most excited about were the
toys.
It's a little misleading to say that we "wanted to
make TMNT toys" -- the implication is that it was
our idea to do a toy line and thus we pursued it.
We actually didn't do much at all in the sense of
actively trying to get toys made -- we were
heavily involved with putting out the TMNT comics
at the time, and they were making us good money
and we were having a great time -- and I don't
know if having a toy line really entered into our
thoughts or planning.. When Mark Freedman came to
us and told us that as our licensing agent he
could very likely get us a toy line, of course
that interested us.
It is true that I came to dislike the first
animated show, mostly for its relentless silliness
and tiresome repetition. It's a mixed blessing --
I greatly appreciate what that show did for the
TMNT property in the sense of helping to make it a
large scale success, but I almost can't bear to
watch any of those episodes now.
Jamie:
I've got to know, how much money were you two
pulling in during the height of the TMNT craze?
Peter Laird:
You may think you have to know, but I know that I
don't have to tell you! In all seriousness, I make
it a policy never to be specific about how much
money we made -- I mean, other than us and our
accountants and the IRS, it's really nobody's
business. Suffice it to say that it was way more
money than we EVER thought we'd make... and
probably a lot less than some people imagined that
we made. It is accurate to say that the licensing
of the TMNT made us multimillionaires.
Jamie:
Did the fame and fortune affect the two of you
in any way?
Peter Laird:
Definitely. I don't think it's possible to go
through this kind of extreme shift in fortune
without being affected in some ways. I won't speak
for Kevin, but I know that it has made me more
insular.
Jamie:
I understand that Kevin Eastman sold his half
of the TMNT rights to you in 2001, and now you are
the sole owner of them. How did that come about?
Peter Laird:
It was really the culmination of about six years
of events which had led Kevin further and further
away from Mirage Studios, geographically speaking
(he had moved to California) as well as in spirit,
and further away from the TMNT in the level of
interest and commitment he had. In general, I
think he was just tired of it all and wanted to
move on to other things, so we came to a mutual
agreement and cut a deal which allowed me to buy
out his ownership interest in the TMNT property.
Jamie:
Are there any plans to publish a TPB of the
early TMNT stories?
Peter Laird:
I have vague plans to do that, but nothing
definite as of yet.
Jamie:
You know, there are probably still a lot of
self publishers that dream of having the same
success you and Eastman had with TMNT, what would
your advice to them be?
Peter Laird:
Well, first off I'd tell them that while it might
happen again to some other person, DON'T go into
self-publishing thinking that that should be your
goal. We were incredibly fortunate to have all the
elements come together at the right moment, and it
all worked. The other major thing is that if you
don't have a PASSION to do comics -- if you don't
think about it almost every hour of the day and
find excuses to go off and write and/or draw --
don't bother. There's really no point to it if you
don't have the passion.
Jamie:
After TMNT you and friend Jim Lawson went on to
create Planet Racers. How did that come about?
Peter Laird:
Jim and I are good friends and enjoy a shared
interest in motorcycles. When we stopped
publishing the Mirage color TMNT series, Jim was
left without a steady gig. So one day we were
sitting around having our usual coffee break, and
I mentioned to Jim that I'd like to work with him
on some kind of non-TMNT project, and it would be
cool if it involved both motorcycles and science
fiction (another of our shared interests). Not too
long after that, Jim came back to me with the
rough idea for PLANET RACERS, and we started
working on that in earnest. It was great fun.
Jamie:
The two of you kept doing Planet Racers until
1999. Why did you stop?
Peter Laird:
I think it was because we had finished telling the
story we had in mind, and wanted to get on with
other things. Someday we may return to those
characters. Actually, either this year or early
next year there will be one episode of the new
TMNT animated show which involves the Planet
Racers universe.
Jamie:
What many people do not know is that you are
the one behind the Xeric Foundation. For those
that don't know, what is the Xeric Foundation?
Peter Laird:
The Xeric Foundation is an organization I set up
in 1992 to give grants to charitable institutions
and self-publishing comic book creators. The total
dollars given out are equal for both sides.
Jamie:
Peter Laird:
Originally, it was suggested to me that a
foundation would be a good way to deal fairly with
the many requests for financial aid I was
receiving from various people and organizations.
It got to be a little bit overwhelming, and I
realized that I needed a structured way to
evaluate who I should give money to. It turned out
that for a number of reasons, including the fact
that once started it was kind of self-sustaining,
a foundation was the way to go. I included
self-publishing comic book creators because I knew
through experience with the TMNT comics how much
help even a relatively small financial boost can
be. Like Kevin and I were when we did the first
issue of TMNT, a lot of comic creators are young,
or don't have much disposable income. Or both.
Jamie:
Has the foundation grown as much as you'd hope?
Peter Laird:
Well, it's been going on for twelve years now, and
I've been very happy with the choices that the two
grant committees -- who review all of the
applications and make recommendations for who
should get grants, and how much -- have suggested.
I confess that I pay more attention to the comics
side, and it's been really rewarding to see that a
lot of the people who have gotten a Xeric grant
have gone on to make their mark in the world of
comics. My only regret is that the Xeric
Foundation doesn't have the funds to give grants
to all of the deserving creators who apply. Our
website is at www.xericfoundation.com, where you
can find out more about applying and also see who
has gotten grants before -- we have a lot of links
to different creators' own websites.
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