The major comic companies put out enough comics that sometimes it can leave your head spinning and eyes bleeding as you search the new titles each week for something worth reading. To aid in your Geeky endeavors, Speak Geeky To Me on occasion reviews new titles from the major companies to spotlight the best and worst of what’s available at your local comic shop. So sit back, relax, and enjoy a new Comic Review.

 

The Info Bit

Title: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Color Classics

Genre/s: Action/Sci-Fi

Writer: Kevin Eastman & Peter Laird

Penciler: Kevin Eastman & Peter Laird

Colorist: Tom Smith’s Scorpion Studios

Publisher: IDW

Number of Issues: #1 of (as yet to be determined)

Page Count: 40

Price: 3.99

 

The Review Bit

Ok, normally right now I would be telling you all about how our story begins, giving you the ins & outs, the who’s, the why’s, and what-have-you’s, but this is the dang Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. If by now you do not know the story of 4 turtles becoming mutated by some radioactive ooze and are then trained as ninjas by their mutated master rat and father figure Splinter…you may be beyond help my friends.

Now, I hope you were like me when you found out that these mid 80’s classics were being re-printed in color for the first time you thought to yourself “Oh Hell Yes!” Actually I think I might have shouted “FINALLY THE NINJA TURTLES IN GLORIOUS ULTRA COLOR!!!!” Ok maybe I didn’t, who knows. The thing is, I can admit I never owned the originals, hell I can admit I never even read all of the originals. So, even though these were just color reprints, I was more than excited at the prospect of having and reading the brilliant ideas of Eastman and Laird that have remained such a strong force for almost 30 years.

So I waited until these issues finally arrived and I was so not disappointed. While waiting for this book to drop, I had begun to wonder what the coloring might look like. The coloring medium has come soooo far in the last 30 years that I began to fear that new methods and new styles of coloring would detract from that iconographic look that Eastman & Laird gave their characters. I worried for nothing. Tom Smith’s Scorpion Studios did an amazing job at coloring each panel as if it had been colored in 1984. It didn’t look digitized, or super clean, or anything like that. It felt just as, well…as independent and gritty as those Mirage Studios books did so many years ago. I really was incredibly pleased and amazed.


The Rating Bit

Look, how do you rate a reprint of a near 30 year old book that is loved by people the world over? I had an absolute blast reading this book again, and was just filled with nostalgia. That, along with being incredibly satisfied with the great colors by Tom Smith’s Scorpion Studios, I really feel like this gets a well deserved 10 out of 10. I thought long about this, not really wanting to just throw around 10’s and with this being my first 10-rated review, and it’s a review for a colorized reprint. But after thinking about it, why not? It doesn’t matter if it’s 2012 or 1984; it rarely gets much better than this.  So if you see a copy on the shelf BUY IT!!! The kid inside you TOTALLY deserves it.