IDW Publishing’s new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ongoing series has been firing on all cylinders and is a must read for any Turtles fan. Tom Waltz and Kevin Eastman are doing a great job of drawing from every Turtles universe to develop a rich, new timeline. One of the tools that IDW has used rather nicely is the Micro-Series (guest one-shots). Instead of telling a unique story that has nothing to do with the ongoing, they have used their guest one-shots to build on, and expand, the current Turtles universe. I recently had the opportunity to ask Paul Allor (Twitter @PaulAllor), who wrote the Fugitoid Micro-Series issue, some questions about his experience.
@xovercomics: Thank you for taking the time to answer a few questions. I guess my first question should be, were you a Turtles fan growing up?@PaulAllor: Yeah, absolutely. The Turtles were a big part of my childhood.
@xovercomics: To give our readers an idea of what kind of TMNT fan you are, please list your following favorites. I will give you mine.
Favorite Turtle: Donatello
Favorite non-Turtle character: Casey Jones
Favorite comic book series: Mirage (Return to New York, City at War, Gang Wars in particular) but IDW is catching up quickly
Favorite animated series: 4Kids 2K3 TV series (first 2 seasons in particular)
Favorite movie: First live action movie (Turtles Forever was pretty amazing for different reasons)
@PaulAllor:
Favorite Turtle: Raph.
Favorite non-Turtle character: Fugitoid, of course!
Favorite comic book series: The IDW series is great, but it’s tough to beat Mirage.
Favorite animated series: The new one. It’s been freaking amazing so far.
Favorite movie: I haven’t seen the first three movies since I was a kid. But from what I can remember, probably a toss-up between the first one and Secret of the Ooze.
@xovercomics: Have you been following the IDW TMNT ongoing series?
@PaulAllor: Oh, yeah. I really love what they’re doing with it, telling a great story, bringing in elements of the franchise in a controlled manner, and expanding/changing the mythology in smart, character-centered ways.
@xovercomics: How much creative freedom do you have when you guest on a comic, TMNT in particular? Were you given bullet-points or a more detailed “script” to follow?
@PaulAllor: Neither, really. I would say I was given parameters. That’s probably the best way to describe it. I was told what I needed to accomplish, and what was coming up in the ongoing so I’d understand the continuity I needed to fit it into. But beyond that, they gave me a tremendous amount of freedom to tell the story I wanted to tell. It was a really great collaboration.
@xovercomics: Where do you draw your inspiration from when you write a comic?
@PaulAllor: I’m not really sure how to answer that. On the one hand, pretty much everything in a writer’s life has some influence on their output. On the other hand, it’s not really about being inspired. It’s about putting in the work required to learn your craft, and then sitting down and slogging through a script page by page, panel by panel, revision by revision.
@xovercomics: How do you feel about guest writing? How did it differ from writing Clockwork, for example?
@PaulAllor: Well, doing your own stuff offers a greater amount of freedom. But you’re still placing your own restrictions on your creator-owned work. A piece of fiction with no parameters and no internal logic will quickly become a hot mess. So really, it’s about understanding the characters and the setting, rather than creating your own. Beyond that, it’s about fitting into something greater than just your own work, and about staying true to the style and spirit of the franchise. I enjoy doing both a great deal, and the ideal career would involve some of each.
@xovercomics: You probably cannot go into much detail, but are there any plans for you to guest on the TMNT again?
@PaulAllor: I’d love to, but there are a ton of amazingly talented folks who’d also welcome the opportunity. We’ll have to see.
@xovercomics: Before we end the interview, I do not think we could talk TMNT without getting your opinion on the following.
Michael Bay’s original comment: "When you see this movie, kids will believe one day that these turtles do exist. These turtles are from an alien race, and they're going to be tough, edgy, funny, and completely lovable."
I was not worried at first because the ooze is of Utrom origin; maybe he misspoke. I was completely fine with his comment; then this happened.
Possible movie synopsis: “After their planet’s destruction, four turtle-like alien warriors and their master come to Earth, where they join forces with reporter April O’Neil to prevent the extradimensional conqueror Krang from enslaving the human race.”
And recently at Comic-Con, Kevin Eastman reassured us a little bit with this comments.
Kevin Eastman’s comments at Comic-Con: “From what I've seen, it's easily the best 'Turtle' movie yet. We're talking 'Raid: Redemption'-style fight scenes; we're talking about epic 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' sort of effects. A lot of people are worried we pushed the release date from December to May, but the 30th anniversary of the 'Turtles' is in May, so it worked out perfectly. Every person that's grown up inspired by that material wants to put their stamp on it a little bit. It just keeps getting better and better, and to have that opportunity is pretty awesome. I know that Michael [Bay] and his group really like that and that Paramount was supportive of that, so I think that it's great. I grew up reading 'Captain America' and 'The Avengers' and all that stuff, and over the course of the comic book history, since 'Avengers' has been around, how many times has it been reinvented, reformatted, restructured, replatformed?”
Where do you stand on the new Ninja Turtles movie? Have you read the “leaked” script?
@PaulAllor: This is going to be anti-climactic after all of that, but I really don’t have anything intelligent to say on this topic. I have not read the script, and I’m not really big on speculating about a movie before it comes out. I’m a hold-your-judgement-until-opening-day kind of a guy.
@xovercomics: I want to thank you again for taking the time to answer these questions. Anything you want to plug?
@PaulAllor: Yeah, thanks for having me. If people want to see more of my work, my web-site is at www.paulallor.com, and I’m on Twitter at @PaulAllor. You mentioned my collection of short comics, Clockwork, which people can read (and buy) at www.clockworkcomic.com. And I have a book called Orc Girl, which you can check out at www.readchallenger.com.
Please go back and read my review of IDW’s Micro-Series Vol 2 TPB collecting the 4 Micro-Series issues, Splinter, Casey Jones, April O’Neil, and Fugitoid. The TPB was released in November 2012.