TMNT Early Issues and Reprintings in Depth Part III of III

Having posted the first and second part of my in depth review of the early issues and reprints of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, we come to the final chapter, covering the years 1988 & 1989. These are years of great success and the beginnings of the first "turtle mania" phenomenon which will last the next five years. But what price fame and fortune? Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird  and Mirage Studios would, as we will see, struggle with the demands that popular culture will place on an independent, once almost underground, comic:

TMNT Early Issues and Reprintings in Depth Part II of III

In Part II of my series on the early TMNT issues and reprints, we enter into Mirage Studios' years of expansion. While Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird were responsible for all of Mirage's 1984 and much of its 1985 output, in 1986 not only do they publish new, non-TMNT books but also take on new, young and talented artists to contribute to TMNT.  These years will lay the groundwork for the huge success of the TMNT as a licensed property, and it is documented in the pages of the TMNT comic book. Let's see how:

TMNT Early Issues & Reprintings in Depth Part I of III

The Mirage Studios Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic's reputation and sales grew over time. The early issues were not always accessible, even for the dedicated comic-shop goer. Reprints and collections often only print the main story, not the other parts which constitute the book, namely creator columns and advertisements. Backup stories may or may not be found in other collections. Wrap-around covers may lose their rear illustrations. In this blog article I am going to issue-by-issue, printing-by-printing, in chronological order to discuss some interesting features of each comic's single issue reprints. While I cannot reproduce the books, I can quote and summarize. 

Revision after Revision - Evolution of Classic Dungeons and Dragons

The Classic or non-Advanced Dungeons and Dragons game had a remarkably long life. Arguably first introduced with the Basic Set in July, 1977, products were made for the Classic game line until 1996. Unlike other editions of the game, the Classic game did not remain almost immutable and unchanged throughout its lifetime. In this blog article we will consider how the game evolved over time.

The Failed Kickstarter - Legal Ramifications

Crowdfunding is a very useful tool to help a creative, whether that creative is a single artist, a pair of complementary inventors or a small group of designers, obtain access to the money needed to produce something and bring it to people willing to buy it. Some campaigns become very successful, some just barely meet their funding goals and some fail to get funded. Today we are looking what can happen in the legal sense when a project meets its funding goal but fails to deliver on promised backer rewards.

Holmes D&D-era Dice Replica Review

Holmes Dice, courtesy of eBay

Dice have a very long history, humans have been using them to play games, as parts of a game or to generate randomness since prerecorded history. While the 6-sided cube or hexahedron (d6) has always been the most popular die shape used, it is not the only shape used to generate random numbers. It and other four platonic solids, the 4-sided Tetrahederon (d4), the 8-sided Octahedron (d10), the 12-sided Dodecahedron (d12) and the 20-sided Icoashedron, have long histories in this application. It is their earliest employment in role playing games, namely those dice originally sold for Dungeons and Dragons and included with its original (Holmes) Basic Set, which interests me and the ability to replicate that experience at a reasonable cost. Today I will explore the history of the so-called "Holmes Dice" and two such products which aim to do so.

Early TMNT Comic Book Printing and Reprinting Features

The early issues of Mirage Studio's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic book have been very collectible for a long time. Like many successful comic books, TMNT has had most of its early issues reprinted and made available regularly if not continuously since its debut in 1984. In this article I would like to discuss some issues regarding the reprinting of the various black and white comic books published by Mirage Studios during the 20th Century,

Wireless Controller Duel - 8bitdo N30 2.4g vs. Retro-bit Origin8

Wireless NES controllers are nothing new but good ones are more recent. Wireless controllers contemporary with the NES were generally infrared based, which meant that they had to be within a direct line of sight to a receiver and within only a rather limited range and angle from the receiver. They also had high latency as the infrared pulses took milliseconds to transmit a full controller packet. More modern solutions use a 2.4g or Bluetooth receiver. Today we are going to compare a newcomer to the NES controller scene, the Retro-bit Origin8, to the reigning 2.4g NES controller champion, the 8bitdo N30 2.4g.