This week the comic book I am most excited to read is...
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Usagi Yojimbo
The TMNT are teleported to a world of talking animals-the world of Usagi Yojimbo! When the samarai rabbit embarks on a quest to save Japan and the deadly Jei blocks his path, a Turtle team-up may be the only chance for survival!
If you have been recently visiting the official Mirage Licensing website, you have seen that Peter Laird has been holding ebay auctions each week for vintage Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles items. These range from hard to find items like a sealed Scratch action figure to McDonalds Happy Meal Toys. One item that caught my eye was this TMNT Flying Disc from the early 90s!
The artwork on the package is classic Turtles and the neon pink color of the Flying Disc is totally a signature color of the 90s! I placed a $10 bid and one week later, I had won this amazing TMNT relic straight from the Mirage Studios headquarters archives in Northampton, MA!
The coolest thing about this item is that it came autographed by Peter Laird himself!
Yes, that Peter Laird! Co-creator of the Mean Green Machine and father of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Being a huge fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles since I was a child, I had always wanted to own a piece of memorabilia that had been signed by the Turtles creators. This was an inexpensive way to do that.
But that's not all, while paying for my item through PayPal I put in a request for Dan Berger to sign the Flying Disc also! And he did it!
For those of you not familiar with Mr. Berger's work, he worked on the early issues of the Archie published Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures series before moving to the main TMNT title in 1989. Berger also created the independent comic Gutwallow and came up with the TMNT character Merdude! He is currently Managing Editor of Mirage Publishing and maintains The Mirage Group Website.
As a lifelong fan, I am extremely happy to have this item in my ever growing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles collection. I am very careful with it though. Since the guys signed on the plastic wrapper, any little poke or tear could ruin it! Gotta keep this baby up high and on display in my man cave/kids playroom.
