I have made no secret that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were (and still) a huge influence on me and this TMNT piece was drawn in Procreate as a tribute to those four turtles that turned comic books completely upside down.

What can I say? TMNT created by Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman turned my world upside down.

I first encountered the Turtles back in 1986 in the Palledium Roleplay book of the same name. I was a huge RPG geek at the time and there was a huge explosion of roleplay rule sets in the mid-eighties. It seemed like everything was getting an RPG, the Turtle one turned out to be a particular good one (accept the combat system sucked).

I enjoyed the game and about three months later got my hands on a TMNT comic book, I don’t remember the number, I know it was when Easteman and Laird were still working on the book and it was about two super-characters, a girl with laser powers and a chunky guy made of concreate.

I found another couple of Turtle books and the idea of these books kinda blew my mind. At this point I had grown up on a diet of Beano, Warlod and 2000AD, so black and white stories never put me off. But the TMNT comics felt different, rebellious, here were two guys doing their own thing and owning all the success. It broke all the rules I knew about comic books, and has remained the biggest influence on me in my writing and creating my own stories. After all, if these guys could do it? Then what is stopping me?

Might be why the Night Guardians main team and the Cuddly Ninjas never grew beyond four in number.

My tribute piece features the four original turles, Leonardo, Donatello, Michaelangelo and Rapheal, with a lean towards their 80’s cartoon markings drawn and colored in Procreate.

Turtle Power!