| Kevin Eastman | |
|---|---|
 Eastman in 2023 | |
| Born | Kevin Brooks Eastman (1962-05-30)May 30, 1962 (age 63) Portland, Maine, U.S. |
| Areas |
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Notable works | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,Heavy Metal,The Melting Pot |
| Collaborators | Peter Laird,Eric Talbot,Simon Bisley |
| Awards | Inkpot Award (1989)[1] |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 2 |
| Signature | |
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Kevin Brooks Eastman (born May 30, 1962) is an Americancomic book writer and artist best known for co-creating theTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles withPeter Laird.[2] Eastman was also formerly the editor and publisher of the magazineHeavy Metal.
Eastman was born inPortland, Maine.[3] He attendedWestbrook High School inWestbrook, Maine, with comic book illustratorSteve Lavigne.[4] He grew up a comic book fan, withJack Kirby as his idol andKamandi as his favorite title of his.[5]
In 1983, he worked in a restaurant while he searched for publishers for his comics. He met a waitress who was attending theUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst and followed her toNorthampton, Massachusetts.[6] While searching for a local underground newspaper to publish his work, he began a professional relationship withPeter Laird, who worked in nearbyDover, New Hampshire, and the two collaborated for a short time on various comics projects.[7]
In May 1984, Eastman and Laird self-published the first black & white issue ofTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The forty-page oversized comic had an initial print run of 3,275 copies and was largely funded by a $1,000 loan from Eastman's uncle Quentin. It was published by the duo'sMirage Studios, a name chosen because, as Eastman says, "there wasn't an actual studio, only kitchen tables and couches with lap boards."[7][8] By September 1985, their first issue had received three additional printings.[9]
Laird's newspaper experience led to the two creating a four-page press kit,[10] which included a story outline and artwork. They sent the press kit to 180 television and radio stations as well as to theAssociated Press andUnited Press International. This led to widespread press coverage of both theTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Mirage Studios itself, creating a demand for the comic.[8] With their second issue, Eastman and Laird'sTurtles comic began a quick rise to success, bringing in advance orders of 15,000 copies, five times the initial print run of the first issue. This earned Eastman and Laird a profit of $2,000 each and allowed them to become full-time comic book creators.[7]
TheTurtles phenomenon saw the duo invited to their firstcomics convention at the tenth annualAtlanta Fantasy Fair in 1984, where they mingled with notable fandom celebrities likeLarry Niven,Forrest J Ackerman andFred Hembeck.[7][11]
Their fifth issue ofTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was released in November 1985, and was downsized to the more common American comics-format and size. The previous four issues were also reprinted in this size and format with new colored covers. Also in 1985,Solson Publications releasedHow to Draw Eastman and Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Solson would follow this up with the six-issueTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Authorized Martial Arts Training Manual as well as one issue ofTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Teach Karate volume in 1987.[citation needed]
Mirage'sTurtles comic led to a widening media presence for the heroes. Eastman and Laird began to widelymerchandise their property. Dark Horse Miniatures produced a set of 15lead figurines for role-playing gamers and collectors,Palladium Books produced arole-playing game featuring the Turtles, andFirst Comics reprinted in four volumes the first eleven issues as colortrade paperback collections.[8]
Palladium's role-playing game brought the Turtles to the attention oflicensing agent Mark Freedman and the Turtles phenomenon took off, with the various characters soon appearing on T-shirts, Halloween masks, mugs, and other paraphernalia.[12] A five-part televised cartoon mini-series based on the Turtles debuted in December 1987.[13] The half-hour episodes were produced by Osamu Yoshioka (吉岡 修) and the animation was directed by Yoshikatsu Kasai (笠井 由勝) from scripts byDavid Wise and Patti Howeth. The mini-series was successful, leading to a full series, with the mini-series forming the first season. The series had a 9-year, 10-season, 193-episode run. Bob Burden writes:
within days of it airing it was apparent that the TMNT would prove every bit as popular for the television audience as it had been for the comic readers. From there, Surge Licensing formed an unstoppable creative marketing powerhouse that set a new standard of excellence in the licensing and merchandising industries.[8]
In January 1988, Eastman and Laird visitedPlaymates Toys, who wished to marketaction figures based on the comic book and animated cartoon series, further cementing the Turtles' place in history and making Eastman and Laird extremely successful.[7]
Multiple otherTurtles comics, toys, books, games, and other merchandising items have subsequently appeared, overseen and sometimes fully created by Eastman and Laird. Among these are five live-action films:Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990),Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991),Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993),Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014), andTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016). Four more television series were also created:Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation (1997),Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003),Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012), andRise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2018). There also were two animated feature films:TMNT (2007) andTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023).
Eastman wrote the 2012Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles episode "Lone Rat and Cubs". He also co-wrote the 2016 stand-alone TMNT short "Pizza Friday".[14] Eastman also made a brief cameo inOut of the Shadows,[15] and made a voice-over cameo inMutant Mayhem.
Creative differences began to strain Eastman and Laird's partnership. In an interview in 2002, Laird noted that the two hadn't spent much time together since 1993. Eastman moved to California while Laird stayed in Massachusetts.[citation needed]
On June 1, 2000, Laird and the Mirage Group purchased Eastman's ownership in theTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles property and corporations.[citation needed] Eastman wanted to move on to other projects. The buyout was completed on March 1, 2008.
In 2011, Eastman began working with theTMNT series again as a writer and artist on theIDW comic series, as well as an adviser on the2014 reboot of theTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film series. Eastman is said to have a cameo in the film as a doctor, and has voiced the character Ice Cream Kitty in the2012 CGI series.
In December 2019, issue #100 ofIDW Publishing'sTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic series featured a teaser ad for an upcoming comic project titledThe Last Ronin in which the prospect of a possible reunion and cooperation between Eastman and Laird was held out.[16] The project was confirmed in April 2020, with a TBD release date sometime in the summer,[17][18] and was subsequently released in October 2020.[19]
While co-managingMirage Studios, Eastman and Laird often spoke of the difficulties in maintaining creative control of their work. Eastman decided to address this problem by using his own personal knowledge and connections to help other creators. Approaching Laird with his ideas, Eastman was met with a less than positive response:
[M]y first thought was to expand the publishing arm of Mirage. But the more sane of the two partners said, "What are you, nuts?" ...[w]e were working pretty much full time just on the Turtles. Pete told me, and I agreed, that he didn't want to have anything else on his brain in terms of publishing at the time. So with his blessing, I started Tundra Publishing.[7]
Eastman foundedTundra Publishing in 1990,[20] to realize personal and other projects. He joined with other comic creators likeScott McCloud andDave Sim to form theCreator's Bill of Rights. Eastman felt obligated to expand it beyond theory and into practice, providing a forum for comics creators to work for a publisher while maintaining ownership of their work.[7]
Rick Veitch has written that:
One of the plans was for Tundra to act as anexoskeleton for an existingself-publisher; offering marketing muscle, higher production values, printing costs paid and a page rate up front for half the action no strings attached.[21]
Moreover, Eastman provided a forum forMarvel andDC creators to work on projects that they could not otherwise realize:
Basically, I'd meet them at conventions and they'd said they're stuck doing Spider-Man, they had a wife and a kid at home, and they had to make ends meet. But if they really had a chance, they said they'd really do this [at Tundra] and I'd hear this repeatedly. So, I went back to those artists because I had the money and said I'd give them the chance. I asked them what they'd like to do. They could pick their dream projects that they'd wanna do and I would provide the funding so that they could survive and they didn't have to do Spider-Man for a year and I'll fund the projects and I just wanted to make my money back from the profits to keep my company going.[22]
Projects (partly) realized by Tundra included:Alan Moore andBill Sienkiewicz'sBig Numbers, Moore andEddie Campbell'sFrom Hell, Moore andMelinda Gebbie'sLost Girls (these last two original serialized inStephen R. Bissette'sTaboo anthology, which was also part-published by Tundra),[a]The Crow,Mike Allred'sMadman andDave McKean'sCages, and others.[22]
Eastman initially thought that his experience at Mirage gave him "a pretty good grasp of what a publisher should be, and what a publisher needs to do," although he swiftly realized that "Tundra wasnot like publishing the Turtles."[7]
As part of Eastman's designs for Tundra were to produce personal projects of a more adult nature than the Turtles-oriented Mirage was geared towards,[b] this saw Tundra fitting in the dubious middle-ground, as their intended product sat somewhat awkwardly between the comic shop and the book shop. Eastman says that he "thought that the audience was a lot larger than it actually was," citing his personal assumption that readers would "grow up throughX-Men and discoverThe Sandman and thenDark Knight andWatchmen and beyond." The relatively new inroads of comics and graphic novels into bookshops worked against Tundra at the time.[7]
Eastman swiftly became aware that Tundra and the Turtles differed considerably, not least since the latter was successful enough to effectively run itself, with a few 'nudges' "to keep it moving along." Tundra, on the other hand, dealt in new properties, which required "building from the ground up," and was "a lot more work" than Eastman had anticipated, growing far too quickly for comfort, and requiring considerable injections of time and money, rather than being profitable.[7]
Speaking in 1992/93, Eastman was optimistic that the company had "finally reached the point where [it had] slowed up enough... to be giving individual projects the time and attention they require[d]."[7]
Shortly thereafter, however, Tundra merged withKitchen Sink Press (KSP),[23][24] closing its (solo) doors after just three years.[c] Although Eastman ended up on KSP's board,[26] Kitchen Sink Press itself closed down in 1999, with Eastman losing between $9 and $14 million once the dust settled.[22]
Despite heavy financial losses, Eastman remained philosophical about his work with Tundra. In a 2007 interview, he drew the analogy that:
Doing the Turtles was like going to college and doing Tundra Publishing was like getting my master's degree. So I learned a lot with the Turtles and I learned the rest of what I needed to know... when I did Tundra.[22]
He made mention of the multiple award nominations Tundra received during its first and second years, includingHarvey Awards andEisner Awards, but noted that despite critical acclaim, the company was not making money on its titles, and had to cease production. He noted that Tundra was one of the earlier creator-owned companies, "beforeImage really took off" and beforeDark Horse Comics' "Legends line."[22]
Eastman admitted that Tundra tried to do too much too quickly, and ran into difficulties accordingly.[7] He also suggested that "[n]ot one book made any money".[22] He also believed that part of Tundra's downfall was tied to his offering Marvel and DC employees the chance to work on creator-owned and personal projects. He has stated in an interview that:
In my personal opinion, we took away so many creams of the crops [sic] artists likeDave McKean,Neil Gaiman,Alan Moore,Rick Veitch,Mike Allred... [that] the two big companies had the power to go to the key distributors and made them short sell, under ship and ____ing bury these guys because now that Dave McKean is doing stuff at Tundra, the big publishers were losing money because Dave's not doingArkham Asylum 2 and Alan Moore's not doingWatchmen 2, he's not doingSwamp Thing, but instead he's doingFrom Hell with Tundra.... Basically, we got the raw end of the deal.[22]
Kevin Eastman had been a longtime fan of the science fiction andfantasy magazine, much of whose content was translated from the French, and appeared in the originalMétal Hurlant publication of whichHeavy Metal is only the American-licensed incarnation. He cites the publication as bringingRichard Corben to his attention as the "second greatest influence" on him as an artist, afterJack Kirby.[7] He saw in its pages European art which had not been previously seen in the United States, as well as anunderground comix sensibility that nonetheless "wasn't as harsh or extreme as some of the underground comix – but...definitely intended for an older readership."[7]
DiscoveringHeavy Metal had been put up for sale, and with one of Tundra's stated aims, to bring a more adult sensibility (and mature, adultreaders) to comics, overlapping with the magazine's target audience, Eastman decided thatHeavy Metal was "the final piece of the puzzle", and looked into purchasing it. Noting that:
In my life, too many things have happened in a weird, sort of shit-luck sort of fashion,[7]
Eastman purchased the magazine in January 1992.[27][7]
Despite the audiences forHeavy Metal and Tundra's intended product (as well as more mature-themed comics in general) being of a broadly similar demographic, Eastman recognized from the start that "most of the audience who readHeavy Metal buy it off thenewsstands; they're not going into comic book stores," and stated early on that his intention was to produce "numerous crossovers from the cutting edge of comics creators" to expose the magazine's readership not just to the comics industry, "but anything from the visual media that can cross over."[7]
Eastman also attempted to bring some European hardcover comics to America, usingHeavy Metal to help serialize them and both defray the costs and boost readership. Initial interest, however, was "fairly cool."[7]
Eastman sold the magazine to digital and music veteran David Boxenbaum and film producer Jeff Krelitz in January 2014.[28] Eastman continued to serve as publisher of the magazine until 2020,[29] and was a minority investor in the newHeavy Metal.
Aside from his work on multipleTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles projects, and as publisher of Tundra Publishing, Eastman createdFistful of Blood, a black and white graphic novel featuring a blend of influences fromSpaghetti Western and horror. The book featured art bySimon Bisley and was published by Heavy Metal.
Eastman has acted in a small number of films, includingGuns of El Chupacabra in 1997 andThe Rock n' Roll Cops in 2003. He also had a supporting role in the 2004Troma filmTales from the Crapper. Before that, he had a cameo in the 2000 sequel toThe Toxic Avenger calledCitizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV. and had a small role in the firstTMNT movie as a garbage collector. He also wrote one episode of the animated children's seriesCorn & Peg.
He was the subject of an interview in the documentary filmsIndependents, andTurtle Power: The Definitive History of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.[30]
In the early 2000s Eastman was commissioned to create artwork for thedrum kit used bySystem of a Down drummerJohn Dolmayan, an avid comic book collector and vendor. Dolmayan commissioned Eastman to illustrate the Ninja Turtles on one drum, while the art for other drums in the kit, which depicted other characters and scenes, were produced bySimon Bisley,Tim Vigil, andArthur Adams.[31]
Eastman purchased his first piece of original artwork ("a couple of pages that were penciled byMichael Golden and inked byBob McLeod forMarvel Comics'Howard the Duck") at theAtlanta Fantasy Fair, the convention he and Laird attended in 1984.[7] Collecting subsequently became "quite an addiction" for him, and combined with his experiences in getting his, and others', comics work recognised as "Art," led to him founding theWords & Pictures Museum,[7] which operated as a brick-and-mortar museum from 1992 to 1999.[32][33]
Eastman has a son whom he had via surrogate.[34] He was previously married to model and actressJulie Strain from 1995 to 2006.
Eastman married actress and producer Courtney Carr on October 5, 2013. They lived in San Diego with his son and petdachshunds.[35][36]
Eastman grew up in a church-goingChristian family. He considers himself both "Christian" and "spiritual", saying that what he most appreciates is Christianity's message of universal love, which he believes is shared by many other religions.[37]
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