Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Show and Tell

Hey all! It’s Richie (83rw) your CtrlAltNerd.com Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle blogger and this week I have got some cool stuff for show and tell. For starters I want to show off a set of raised stickers that my daughter picked up for me at the dollar store. The TMNT characters on the stickers are based off the Nickelodeon series. There are 23 unique stickers in this set. The designs are great, however they are pretty much the same pose that you find on most Nickelodeon TMNT products that are out now. That is probably my biggest complaint about most of the merchandise out from Nickelodeon. Everything has the same pose of the turtles. The show is getting ready to wrap up season 2, could Nickelodeon and their licensing team spend just a little time to come up with something different? Either way I thought the stickers were neat and I thanked my daughter profusely for thinking of me when she could have gotten herself something else using her piggy bank money.

The next piece of merchandise that I wanted to show off was a recent purchase from Amazon. My wife and I recently had our 13^th anniversary and she picked me up the complete set of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Series One Funko Pops! This series is based off the original Fred Wolf 1980’s cartoon. The set includes the four turtles a long with Master Splinter, and the villain Shredder. I love me some Funko, so these were a perfect choice for a gift. I am really happy with the quality of toys Funko produces. These are not my first Pops! either. I have a few others such as Harley Quinn, V for Vendetta, and Hulk. It was also announced that this July, Funko will be producing even more TMNT toys, ranging from bobble heads to mystery mini figures. I am excited for April O’Neil, Rocksteady, Bebop, and the Foot Solider appearing in Series Two of the Pops! For more info on what Funko has planned in regards to the TMNT franchise check out this link. (http://www.actionfigureinsider.com/nickelodeon-and-funko-expand-multi-year-licensing-deal-to-include-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles/)

The last item that I would like to show and tell is an amazing collectible that a fellow TMNT fan picked up for me on Free Comic Book Day this year up in Maine. For Free Comic Book Day Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman the creators of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles appeared together for event at Shellback Artworks (https://www.facebook.com/ShellbackArtworks) in Wells, Maine for the first time in almost 20 years. For this event Peter Laird also printed up the latest issue (Vol.4 #32) of the original Mirage comic book, it is limited to only 1,000 copies and will not be getting a second print (as far as I know). For those that are aware Peter Laird sold the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 2009 to Viacom/Nickelodeon. In his deal he was allowed to continue publishing TMNT comics under his Mirage Publications banner but was limited to 18 black and white comics per year. Issue #32 is the first comic he has published since the sale, almost 5 years since issue #30 was published. Issue #31 never saw the printer but was released digitally for free via Peter’s blog (http://peterlairdstmntblog.blogspot.com/). So with that information you can see how special this printing of #32 is. So my friend picked me up a copy of this comic while at Shellback and was able to have Peter and Kevin sign the comic as well as Steve Lavigne (inks, lettering and coloring for TMNT comics) and Jim Lawson (inks, and pencils for TMNT comics). The buzz about this even must have been huge as there was a line out of the door according to pictures I have seen and the comic is already fetching high dollars on eBay and other auction sites. I have seen it hit upwards to $200. I am extremely thankful that my friend was able to grab me a copy for just cover price and some shipping. This has quickly become one of my favorite TMNT pieces in my collection.

So that’s it for this post, be sure to check out my TMNT fansite MutantOoze.org for more TMNT goodness!

-Richie (83rw)