Kevin Eastman Studios Order: Part 1

Every now and then I like to peruse the "Shop" section on the Kevin Eastman Studios website. Once in a while there is something there that I would like to add to my collection and that is within my spending range. I've gotten some pretty cool stuff from the site and just last week, I placed another order. One of the items I purchased was this set of enamel pins. They come in this cool little pizza box container and I received the "Team Eastman" pin...

in addition to this magnificent looking "First Turtle" pin based on the very first drawing of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle by Kevin Eastman in 1984.

Another item I picked up was this set of 5 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle greeting cards that were released by Nexoft Corporation in 1989! I love the look of the artwork on these and it reminds me of the early days of Turtlemania!

I picked a grouping of 5 that would include each of the four turtles and I'm hoping to get these framed and hung sometime in the near future...along with a million other TMNT items in my collection!

The final item I picked up was what they call a "Cowabundle". It's a lot of comics that are related by a theme. The "Cowabundle" I chose was the "Vintage Mirage Bundle". Each one of these lots comes with 15 comics from the personal collection of Kevin Eastman with one of these comics signed by one of the creators. I will show off what I received in next Friday's post, but as a special bonus for buying this bundle, the studio threw in an autographed print! Once again these prints would be signed by the artist and you did not know which one you would get. I lucked out and got one signed by TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman! Pretty cool stuff!

That's it for the first part of this delivery. Next week I'll show off the comics I got in my "Cowabundle"! Until then be green and keep it clean! COWABUNGA!

Meeting an animation legend!

While driving to work a few weeks ago, I was scanning through the local radio stations and stopped on a classic hits station because something caught my attention. The hosts were talking about an upcoming animation art display that was coming to a local gallery. This show was dedicated to 50 year animation veteran Ron Campbell and the hosts were talking to him about some of the highlights from his career. If you don't know who Ron Campbell is, here is a brief rundown of some of the iconic cartoons he has worked on during his career: The New Scooby-Doo Movies, The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show, Captain Caveman, Heathcliff, Pac-Man...and the list goes on and on!

 Ron Campbell may be remembered most for his work as an animator and director for the Beatles cartoon and their feature length movie, Yellow Submarine. But it was his work on some of my favorite cartoons that really drew me in to see him at the art show.

 Ron was an animator, story director for the 80s Smurf TV series from 1981-1987. He also served as a story board artist for the specials My Smurfy Valentine (1982), The Smurfs Springtime Special (1982) and my favorite Smurfs special of all time The Smurfs Christmas Special (1982). We watched that every year as kids and now I watch it with my kids!

 Ed, Edd & Eddy debuted on the Cartoon Network when I was in my late teens/early twenties, but I had a younger brother who loved it and once I sat down to watch it with him I was hooked! It reminded me of myself and my friends when I was younger. The depth of characters and the inventive ways the Eds would try to scam nickels to buy jawbreakers was genius! Ron Campbell served as a director on the show from 2002-2007.

 Ron created these special gold record plaques for his various shows and it once again presents the bond between himself and the Beatles animated personas beautifully! My youngest daughter is a huge Beatles fan, so it was especially amazing to her to see these hanging on the walls.

 Scooby-Doo! What kid doesn't love Scooby-Doo. My favorite iteration of the character has to be the Pup Named Scooby-Doo cartoon from the 90s. I loved the art style and the humor that was in the show. We need more Red Herring in future Scooby movies! That is one cartoon Ron Campbell didn't work on, but he did serve as a director on The New Scooby-Doo Movies in 1973 and also as a director on the Scooby & Scrappy-Doo Puppy Hour (1982).

 Rugrats was a classic cartoon that came out in the 90s during the golden age of Nicktoons. Guess what? Hold on to your diapys! Ron Campbell was a story board artist for the show from 1993-2001! 

This was my favorite picture of them all! I wish I would have picked this up at the show, but bills and car repairs took priority over this beautiful piece of art work featuring my favorite group of brothers, the green machine, the heroes 4...the TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES!!! Ron once again took on storyboard duties for the original Fred Wolf version of the TMNT! 

 This guy was seriously talented and was able to make a career out of giving generations joy on the small screen. Seriously, name a cartoon and he probably had a hand in bringing it to our living rooms. Men In Black: The Series, Aaahh!! Real Monsters, Garfield & Friends, Darkwing Duck, Bionic Six and so many more. Check out his IMDB page for more info on his career and tell me this man was not epic! Thanks Ron Campbell for sharing your gifts and for making us happy...and thanks for the autograph!

Autographed TMNT Flying Disc!

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.