@xovercomics: Thank you for taking the time to answer a few questions. I am going to skip over the introductory interview questions and dive right into the good stuff since you have already given great interviews in the past. The question on everyone’s mind; which direction does the water drain when you flush your toilets in Australia?@TRexJones: HAHA! Thanks buddy, and cheers for linking up all those past interviews! A couple of those I’d completely forgotten about... kinda funny looking back on them. As for the toilet thing: ours don’t spin when they flush -- the water is drained away as more water is kind of poured in from the rim of the bowl. It’s WAY more reliable than the American “spin-and-drain” thing most of yours seem to have, which means dropping a bigger deuc...uh... actually, maybe I’m getting a little sidetracked. Let’s just say it makes getting rid of the croc’s that come up through the toilets easier to get rid of...
@xovercomics: Seriously, 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)
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)
@TRexJones:
Favorite Turtle: To write? Mikey. See Tales 64 and you’ll see why. But to watch/read? Donny.
Favorite non-Turtle character: Easy, Hun.
Favorite comic book series: The Mirage run, hands down. Particularly Return to New York and City at War, though I do love the fun of the first 10 issues.
Favorite animated series: It jumps around. I love both for different reasons, but I felt the 2003 series seemed to lose itself the longer it went on.
Favorite movie: The first one, without a doubt, though Forever was a hell of a lot of fun.
@xovercomics: IDW has been on a roll with it’s TMNT reboot, and Tom Waltz has been knocking it out of the park. What do you think of the Turtles’ current incarnation? Are you following the IDW version?
@TRexJones: I am. I think it’s interesting seeing what Tom’s doing with it. Dan Berger and I were organising a reboot of the whole Mirage universe back before the sale and we’d come up with some really neat new takes on things, so it’s interesting seeing what ideas Tom, Kevin and Nick are having and how they match up or differ from our own, and there have already been a few come startlingly close, which is really cool (and kinda freaky). I think at the end of the day they’re hitting all the right notes.
@xovercomics: With all the attention to detail in the Infestation issues, how much HP Lovecraft research did you do to write these issues? And when you started writing them, did you have your previous TMNT works in the back of your mind?
@TRexJones: I did in that I felt I already had a standard to meet. I wrote those stories like I was writing Mirage issues, which I think might’ve been a mistake because it became very clear that everyone wanted to kind of get away from all that. The research thing is kind of two-answer thing. I didn’t need to do much research at all, because I love Lovecraft. I did go back and reread a lot of things, particularly stuff revolving around the Cthulhu mythos, because I wanted to actively avoid using Cthulhu in any way shape or form. The second response is that I probably did too much, because I started looking into cults and the history of NYC’s subway system and really started looking at all the other creatures in the Cthulhu pantheon to figure out which one best served the story I wanted to tell, and how something like Shub Niggurath would work and its relationship to other Old Ones. So, I’d figured out this big complex relationship between all the Old Ones, the Gods, the human race, etc. and how it all fit together, but the unfortunate thing was a lot of that got left behind in the process of it all.
@xovercomics: You probably cannot go into much detail, but are there any plans for you to guest on the TMNT again? I know Bobby Curnow mentioned that the next four micro-series issues would focus on villains. And with the news that you are now the artist on IDW’s Silent Hill, you’ll be working with Tom Waltz again. Could lead to something interesting...
@TRexJones: I kind of really want to write Hun again. When I heard he was coming back in the IDW stuff I did get that kind of twinge of pain, because Mirage really gave that character to me to build in the comics universe, and the stuff we had signed off on that never saw print kills me. The Shredder/Hun fight? Kills me. I think the villains of the TMNT universe are infinitely more interesting than the Turtles themselves but I dunno, I think after Infestation they were kinda done with me. Infestation was a hard story to tell. Everybody was still kind of finding their feet when I started writing that. It might be different going into things now, two years down the track, but at the end of the day, whether I come back’s up to the TMNT fans and IDW. I’d love to write more stuff, but that’s not my call. I think right now, my heart’s in horror books. There were stories I wanted to tell over on Ghostbusters (which Tom edits, by the way), and all sorts of other outlets and IDW has so many licenses and such a strong focus on good horror that I’d kill a man to work my way in one. I will say this though... if not Hun... Triceratons. PLEASE.
@xovercomics: Your latest project, Sebastian Hawks - Creature Hunter, includes an attempt at crowdfunding. Congratulations on attaining over $17,000 so far. You had mentioned that there are 8 books planned. Can you speak a little bit about this project? Any loose timelines? And how does the feel of this book differ knowing it is “in the fans’ hands” in terms of funding?
@TRexJones: Thanks! Yeah, at least 8 books. Well, assuming the book reaches the target, I will go in and finish up the script for the first book over the next month and a bit, hopefully get that finished by Feb, then it goes straight to Chris to draw, who I’ll assist with layouts just to speed things up. So HOPEFULLY the final, completed 100 page story will be in people’s hands in around (and maybe less than) eight months.
It’s actually a little concerning. We still have a really long way to go to make this thing happen and we don’t have a lot of time to do it in. Most of the people who’ve pledged so far are people Chris and I know. There aren’t a lot of names amongst the 170 who’ve helped us out so far that I don’t recognise. I’d kind of hoped all those people who liked what I was doing on TMNT or Ghostbusters would have helped us out or given this a look in, because if they liked all that stuff then they’d love this, but when you go in and do something like this, you kinda realise who’s a fan of what. I got a lot of love from people for the work I did on TMNT, but I think at the end of the day, a lot of that was more for the story itself than the ability of the person telling it, and I think that’s a pretty across the board thing. I almost hate to say it, but it’s true (though, there are exceptions, and I cannot truly convey love for those people or the support they’ve shown).
@xovercomics: Anyone who follows you on Twitter or Facebook will have seen the progress you are making on your creator owned projects, Exodus and Monstrous. Are you enjoying the freedom that creator owned books allows? What are they about and how will we be able to get a copy once they are completed?
@TRexJones: Yeah, more than anything. I do love bringing what I can to the tables of licensed books, and without that work I wouldn’t be able to sustain myself OR my creator owned endeavours. Exodus and Monstrous are my two babies right now, though I don’t think I’ll be able to really start on Monstrous properly until I move over to the US... it’s about the world ten years after a monsterpocalypse. How does the world work politically after an attack by giant radioactive monsters? What happens when one of these things dies in the middle of a major metropolitan area like LA or New York? That sort of thing.
Exodus is something very different and something I’ve been planning for years now. I’d actually looked at doing this years back with Andres Ponce as an artist (who I worked with a few times on TMNT). It’s about what’s left of the human race having to relocate. We’re at a point in the future where we’ve just figured out how to send manned expeditions into the next solar system and we’re looking for a new place to live. A new Earth, because our own one is inhospitable. It’s nothing new, but the book definitely reaches a point where it goes from being a space exploration/rescue book and shifts gears pretty dramatically... so much so that I may even have to change the title when it does. It becomes more of a survival horror book, with an emphasis on both words in that term. There’s survival horror, but there’s also a horror to survival that I want to explore.
@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?
@TRexJones: Yeah, I’ve read it. It was, unfortunately, extremely forgettable. There were some cool ideas, but it honestly felt like someone had just looked at the old cartoon show and gone “how can we make this badass and cool?”. I’m sure it would find an audience, but that audience would be completely devoid of anyone who ever read and enjoyed the Mirage comics. I don’t mean to sound like an elitist either, I’m just speaking from experience. I know what the Mirage fans are like. It actually felt a lot more in line with what IDW and Nick are doing now, which makes sense, but again, it felt hampered by its clear anchoring to that old show.
At the end of the day, I honestly don’t care what they do anymore. There are so many versions and iterations of things out there that you really can pick and choose what you like and just stick with that. My only real beef is that there isn’t any continuation of the black and white Turtles stuff, if we’re looking specifically at TMNT, and while the IDW stuff is genuinely great, it’s still a far cry from those Mirage stories, and I think the people who love that are the only ones really missing out these days when it comes to TMNT.
@xovercomics: I want to thank you again for taking the time to answer these questions. Anything you want to plug?
@TRexJones: Not really. I just sincerely hope all the people digging the comics now continue to do so, because the industry needs your support, but I also hope people will come across and support Sebastian Hawks, because honestly, I’m more excited about this book than I was when I first started working on the TMNT, so I really hope the TMNT fans out there will check it out and help make it happen. And Exodus!
Please go back and read my review of IDW’s Infestation 2 Vol 3 TPB collecting the 2 TMNT Infestation issues written by Tristan Jones. The TPB was released in August 2012. And if you have liked anything Tristan has done in the past, please support Sebastian Hawks because you will not be disappointed!