Blog 11: Midterm

Steven Figueroa
Media Communication
Prof. Louis Lucca
10/21/10
Adult Eccentric Comic Creators: How Eastman and Laird change the comic industry
During the nineteen eighties Marvel and DC both dominated the entire comic book industry. Becoming a comic book writer or artist was difficult since Marvel/DC have total control of the character the creator is writing, also if one writer or artist comes up with a new character it is now corporate owned. Plus these writers are not compensated with royalties just being paid for drawing and writing iconic characters. Thus the black and white comic book boom was born. Allowing people who wish to pursue a career in the comic industry without working for the big two can promote their comics to readers easily at their local comic shops. Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird were one of the few who were successful marketing and publishing their own material. With their success of comic publishing they will go on and try to change the status quo that Marvel/DC put on the industry foe independent comic creators or at lease attempt to.
Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird are creators of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic book that first appeared in nineteen eighty four. Both creators were inspired comic artist and cartoonist that came up with a concept so ludicrous it just had to be made into a story, as Kevin pointed out “We liked these guys so much we didn't want to give them to anybody else, what are we going to do with them now? How do we explain them? What would they do?”(Douglas C. McGill, New York Times). Fueled by their inspiration and bizarre concept they borrowed money from their friends and loved ones to self publish their comic book idea. They both worked for several weeks on the story, concept, inking, lettering, ect. Both creators being enthusiastic and realistic at the same time since they question wither the comic would sell and appeal to readers who are consumed by the superhero genre that dominated at the time. This is why the first issue of the TMNT comic was forty pages and ended the story.
Eastman and Laird only printed three thousand copies and had limited marketing of their independent comic, until their local distributer out sold more of their entire lot which Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman never expect. The comic had sold a couple of hundred thousand copies nationwide. Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird were the lucky few that survived the black and white comic book boom of the eighties. They also challenged the comic book industry showing that readers are in fact interested in genres other than superheroes which was what Marvel and DC were mostly dishing out at the time, also showed that people can manage their own creative content. Plus they showed anyone can get a career in the comic industry without having to work with either Marvel or DC.
After the success of the TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) comic sales both Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman tried their best to aid independent comic book creators and companies to protect their creatively own material with ideas like the “Bills of Rights for Comic Creators”. Throughout a series of meetings in Northampton Kevin Eastman/ Peter Laird along with other independent comic owners created the Bill of Rights for Comic Creators which allowed independent comic publishers to create and fully owned their content. Comic creators are allowed to publish, market, and have creative control over their own content. They have the right to distribute, manufacture or distribute copies of their creatively owned comics, and gain royalties from their establish properties. In other words comic creator’s works are now protected and cannot be exploited by bigger companies who could buy them out and sweep their creations under the rug unless if the creator sign his rights away to the corporations.
Unfortunately many comic creators didn’t take it seriously and believe or thought to be a mandatory law that forces comic creators to abide by their rules which wasn’t said Kevin Eastman in an interview “What we fell is that there were so many up and coming people like us that, the bill of rights was attended as an informational document saying these are you’re rights. These are the things you should be aware of and if you go in to Marvel and DC, and decide to sign away all those rights. We just wanted you to be aware you’re signing away all those rights” (FanExpo: Kevin Eastman Interview, by Doug Groves).
Kevin Eastman was a strong supporter of the Bill of Rights for comic creators and wanted to put this into practice with his new publishing company. In the early nineties Kevin Eastman felt he should do something more in his career then writing and creative concoctive on TMNT stories, so Eastman manage to sell his rights and shares to Laird in order to open his own comic publishing company called Tundra Publishing. Tundra was an independent publisher that allowed comic writers and artist to be their own editors, creative consultant, and proprietors of their own content being distribute. Basically comic writers have the freedom of doing their projects in their own vision without any disagreements or creative changes done by Eastman or anyone else, but themselves. Tundra allowed their comic creators eighty percent of the profits of royalties from sales. All Eastman asked for was twenty percent for publishing rights and paying his employees, bills, rent etc.
Tundra publishing was famous for having award winning writers, artists, and high production value spent on art materials for artist to work on. Writers like Alan Moore, Dave McKean, and Neil Giaman jumped ship on the new publisher to create comics in their own artistic vision that Marvel and DC wouldn’t dare to accept. Tundra was the first friendly comic creator owned company at the time which eventually gains a lot of attention from other famous writers. Big comic companies were looking over their shoulders and forced their biggest stars into a contract deal to work for them exclusively. This was unfortunate since Tundra had won forty awards from their comics also showed promise, but never met the sales Eastman was hoping. Eastman spends thirteen million dollars with the money he earned from TMNT merchandising on his ideal project only to fail on two accounts and was asked in an interview if this was his greatest disappointment in his career.
Eastman replied “No, for doing the TMNT comic was like going to college and Tundra was like getting a Masters degree. So I learnt a lot with the Turtles and I learnt the rest of what I needed to know. We never stop learning. But I learnt the rest of what I needed to know when I did Tundra.”(Benjamin Kean, Talking to Kevin Eastman). The second reason why Tundra failed was distributers forcing a contract agreement working for them exclusively as mention before. Eastman said “We’ve got the raw end of the deal; In Tundra Alan Moore wasn’t writing the sequel to Watchmen or Dave McKean wasn’t writing Arkham Asylum 2. They were just writing stories for Tundra and other companies were scared that they’ll lose money with these writers working for us.”(Benjamin Kean, Talking to Kevin Eastman). Even with the failure of Tundra Eastman still held his chin up high and applied his lessons from Tundra on a bigger career change.
Peter Laird experimentation with his TMNT comic and self publishing he decided to create a nonprofit and charitable organization called the Xeric Foundation. The Xeric Foundation allowed what Peter Laird said to give something back to the comic community. The main purpose of this organization is to teach people how to self publish their own material into independent realm of comics and perhaps open doors for the individual in a career in comics. This organization is more of an “art for art sake” grant in fear if their comic idea is well it could be too commercialized by bigger companies and become the opposite of its artistic integrity. While the other is to promote a noble cause to donate the money they’ve earned to charity like Girls inc., Northampton music center, or Food Bank. Not everyone is eligible to inherit the money the Xeric grant offers.
The individual has to come up with a fantastic idea and the reason why the individual is doing this so they can be funded by the xeric foundation based on how much that individual need for making the comic. Then and only then it can be judge by professionals who work in self publishing comics. This foundation had paved open the careers of many literally cartoonist and comic writers/artists like Donna Barr and Jim Ottaviani. Who unfortunately are no longer work in the independent comics industry or are just graphic designers. This organization still exists today but Peter Laird isn’t a part of his Xeric Foundation anymore.
After the failure of Tundra Kevin Eastman still kept his chin up high and decided to roll the dice again and purchase a French comic book company called Heavy Metal. Heavy Metal is an adult sci-fi/fantasy genre comic company publishes in France and all of Europe. Kevin Eastman changed the mainstream comic demographic and targeted to adult males/ Females who are tired of reading superheroes or wanted something different from what the comic industry had to offer. Heavy Metal Magazine offers readers different short stories from different writers and artists who are allowed to express themselves freely though with Kevin Eastman supervision.
When people give independent creators credit they mostly give the five ‘fathers’ of Image comics the props. My grief is that these five guys had their fame from working with marvel comics. People like Rob Liefeld, Todd McFarlane, Jim Lee, and Erik Larsen are given credit for giving inspiration to the independent comic industry when they clearly almost run the entire comic industry to the ground. Rob Liefeld is a terrible artist who inspired a generation of young artist to draw distortion representation of the human anatomy and missing feet. He also cashed in on the spectator’s comic gimmick that devalues comics in an artistic and financial format. Plus he inspired a generation of poor storytelling and the generic looking superheroes from the nineties. Todd McFarlane also did the same thing marketing his character by reprinting the same issues of his works multiple times for money.
Sure Image was a lot like Tundra with writers and artist have creative control on their works. Problem is that most of these ‘writers’ were Marvels artists who jumped ship on a company and banked on their fame with their artistic talent. People liked Image comics but most of their works were essentially poorly written to downright rip-offs of previous characters they worked on from Marvel. Sure they were the most successful but eventually became the company they were against working. Image soon became corporate run and each of the five fathers were close to losing their rights of creations to the company. Artist like Jim Lee jumped ship from Image and sold his character rights to DC comics waving his independent roots for the corporate gain. Rob Liefeld sold his characters and went crawling back to Marvel continuously writing and drawing terrible comics that aren’t being sold today.
My point is that Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird are one of the pioneers of independent comics. They didn’t have fame or were well known people for their previous works with Marvel or DC since they never worked for the two. They have a strong passion for comics but didn’t want to worked on superheroes, so they came up with a bizarre concept by watching bad television and doodling.
Both Eastman and Laird proved that in a market dominated by two corporate conglomerates, if you have an idea and a pensionable talent you can be successful in an industry. They’ve tried to work with other independent comic creators to protect and make their rights self aware though many haven’t taken them seriously. Kevin Eastman tried his own dream by opening a creatively owned publishing company Tundra though successful to comic book creators failed with abysmal sales and giant comic companies taking Tundra writers for a better deal and an exclusive contract. Peter Laird created a nonprofit charity organization to promote new and upcoming independent comic artist called the Xeric foundation though successful is no longer a part of it.
No doubt these two comic creators of TMNT have more of an impact then anyone who worked at Image during the nineties.







Footnotes:
DOUGLAS C. McGILL, New York Times. DYNAMIC DUO: Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird; Turning Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Into a Monster.(http://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/25/business/dynamic-duo-kevin-eastman-peter-laird-turning-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-into.html)
Benjamin Ong Pang Kean, Newsarama.com. TALKING TO KEVIN EASTMAN 1: TURTLE DAYS, TURTLE NIGHTS. (http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=127540)
Doug Groves http://www.rgbfilter.com/?p=168