IDW announced during their Comic Con 2012 panel that TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman would be illustrating the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Annual 2012.
This double-length comic will be Eastman’s first significant work with the turtles since 1996, when he wrote the mini-series ‘Bodycount,’ which was illustrated by Simon Bisley.
Eastman sold most of his interest in the turtles to his co-creator Peter Laird in 2000. Laird continued writing TMNT comics until 2008, when he, in turn, sold all his rights to Nickelodeon.
IDW picked up the comic rights for the property and brought Kevin Eastman in on the project; though he mostly stayed in the background, advising on the story and doing layouts for the regular series. Earlier this year, Eastman wrote and drew a four page TMNT short story for the Hero Initiative charity comic, which apparently whet his appetite to do a full issue.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Annual 2012 will be 48 pages and will street in October. Story and art by Eastman, and script by Tom Waltz. Eastman described the plot to MTV Geek:
The classic beginning–two botherly knuckleheads clowning around, and one thing leads to another–the snowball down the big hill effect–and this entire insane adventure is born out of one goofy mis-step! It is a detective story at the very heart–a who done, who double crossed who (or triple crossed who) and Casey and Raph have to see it through to the end–and it has a ton of action!
Eastman loves the Raph / Casey team-ups, it was the subject of ‘Bodycount,’ and the ‘Raphael’ micro-series which he spearheaded.
It all sounds great. Here’s hoping Eastman and IDW make this a regular thing.
