This week marks the release of the sixth and
final issue of Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures. While the main story was resolved last issue, this issue serves as an epilogue special, a self-contained story that sees the Turtles partner with not the original B
atman: The Animated Series version of Batman, but the later
New Batman Adventures version. In a story set months after the first five issue arc, the TMNT join forces with Batman, a new young Robin (Tim Drake), the grown up original Robin now called Nightwing, and a more seasoned and efficient Batgirl all to fight an alien invasion on a galactic scale. Plus, there's a cameo by nearly every single TMNT character who has appeared on the Nick cartoon.
Artist Jon Sommariva delivers another awesome pencil job this issue, and Sean Parson once again brings it all together with his inks. This issue also features the color art of Matt Herms, whose style is the closest we've gotten to the amazing painted art deco backgrounds of Bruce Timm's Gotham City since that cartoon went off the air. The result is one of the best looking issues to date, and makes me wish I was typing away at a sequel already. (Feel free to bug DC and IDW about that, by the way. We might just be able to make it happen!)
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| Jon Sommariva's original promotional art was turned into not just the IDW Convention Exclusive edition, but also a black and white retailer summit exclusive variant! |
Now that we're all wrapped up, I want to be sure to thank everyone at DC, IDW, and Nickelodeon for giving me the opportunity to pour my toy box on the floor and bang my favorite action figures together. Editor Bobby Curnow at IDW, Joan Hilty at Nickelodeon, and Jim Chadwick at DC were great partners, and I really appreciate the level of encouragement they threw my way while we were working on this book.
Artist extraordinaire Jon Sommariva knocked it out of the park each and every issue, and his dedication to this project matched, if not exceeded, my own. I couldn't have been partnered with a better collaborator, and his ideas were key in making this book stronger with every issue. Likewise, Sean Parsons delivered crisp inks that made Jon's bold art even bolder, while retaining the art's lively qualities. There were several time crunches on this book, and Sean came through with flying colors. And speaking of tremendous colors, a big thanks to the aforementioned Matt Hern, and the colorist for the first five issues, Leonardo Ito. And last but not least, a heartfelt thanks to Shawn Lee, whose lettering was clear and precise, no matter how many changes we tossed his way.
And man, did we have some amazing covers on this book or what? Aside from Jon's great work, we saw the likes of Kevin Eastman, Peter Laird and Steve Lavigne, Jeff Matsuda, Ciro Nieli, Hilary Barta, J. Bone, Dario Brizuela, Derek Fridolfs, Rick Burchett, Billy Martin, Chad Thomas, and dozens more talented artists who helped bring way too much notice to our little all-ages story. It was the work of these guys that helped issue # 1 sell out before it hit stores, and draw enough attention to our series to see us nominated for Comic Book of the Year by the Diamond Gem Awards. For issue # 6 alone, we have variant covers by Sean Galloway, Ty Templeton, Valerio Schiti, and comic book icon Neal Adams. Not too shabby...
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| Neal Adams and Ty Templeton comic convention exclusives! High School Matt just saw his head explode. |
And of course, a huge thanks to you, the readers. You went from being a bit wary of another Batman/TMNT crossover so soon after the first comic book version, to becoming amazingly supportive of our different direction, tone, and approach to these classic characters. I've done a half dozen signings since issue # 1 was released, and I never get tired of hearing how this comic resonated with both you and your kids.
Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles # 6 hits stands Wednesday, May 10th. And look for the
trade paperback in July!
To be continued...
