Summary
There’s a new crop ofTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtleson the scene that are flipping the dynamics of everyone favorite heroes on the half shell.The Last Roninintroduceda dark future where Michelangelo was the last of his clan, after years of struggling, finally fell like his brothers.
But in the wake of the Ninja Turtles’ deaths, anew generation of the TMNTwas ushered in under the guidance of April O’Neil and her daughter, Casey Marie Jones. Now the new turtles Yi, Odyn, Moja, and Uno are grown, trained, and learning what it takes to be a hero. Screen Rant sat down with the creative team behind the sequel series,Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin II Re-Evolutionto hear all about the new turtle team.
Screen Rant: One thing I really appreciated aboutThe Last Roninseries is how new reader friendly it is. How intentional is that?
Tom Waltz: Very intentional. Kevin and I love The Dark Knight Returns, you know, big Frank Miller fans, and so you know what we wanted to pull from that. In the case of new readers, we wanted this to be something evergreen, like Dark Knight where you can pick that up even if you’re one of the only few people in this world who doesn’t know who Batman is. So that was that was the framework. We went in with saying we want this to be accessible. So to me that was that was very intentional. And it was also terrifying, just because it’s so revered not only by us, but so many people who love The Dark Knight Returns. But I felt like if you’re going try to imitate someone you may as well imitate the best.
Let’s talk about how big a creative team this is because I’m looking at several people involved in this right now. Talk about your process and how it goes for everybody.
Tom Waltz: That was not the intent. At the beginning, we were working with Andy Kuhn as the line artist and Brittany Pezzillo as the colorist. Andy had already done 20 pages, Brittany had colored a bunch of them and this thing called COVID came along and just threw everything for a loop for everybody. I think Andy needed to step back and we kind of panicked because we were so far into if it and there was so much money invested in it. It was Kevin’s wife, Courtney, who remembered that Kevin had worked with the Escorza brothers on some other projects. So when the Escorzas came in, they jumped right on it. While we were making up that lost time, Brittany said she needed to leave to go do other projects. My first choice for coloring for any book is Luis. I’ve been working with Luis forever so I said “Let’s get Luis.”.
Tom Waltz: As time was becoming more of the essence, we realized we need help with the flashbacks and generally where there’s flashbacks, you’re able to bring in a new artist and it doesn’t ruin the story, so we bring in Ben. What happened by accident we found a way to make it work consistently through the books. So it really was just a matter of necessity to get that first issue done. That’s pretty much the pattern and structure we stuck with since and how the team just grew and grew. My personal thing is that was destiny. I think it made the book better and more interesting that way then if it had continued the original way. We became like a family where and that’s kind of the magic of turtles in general.
Ben Bishop: In addition to that, we’re always setting the bar high. I’m always like “We gotta do crazier, crazier!”. But we’re always making sure it’s the absolute best quality.
Tom Waltz: The linchpin of all this being Luis because the coloring is consistent. It’s nuanced but consistent. Luis keeps everything grounded. It gives it different looks in so I think it appeals to the fact that there’s so many different iterations of the turtles. So you look at Ben’s page and be like “It makes me feel like this version of the turtles.” and then you see Kevin’s are like you’re gonna think of Mirage. Then the Escorzas bring in this new modern look. So I think that really added to the appeal of the book and made it unique compared other books on the shelf.
Ben Bishop: What was your thought process thinking it all together with color?
Luis Antonio Delgado: First of all, I have to adapt to the different artists because. It’s not like my style has to be consistent and I have to adapt with the kind of lines that they do. For example, they’re mentioning the Dark Knight. My process was painting the line art because that’s the way they used to do in it the 80s. So I color everything different. And I get the pages in different ways. Sometimes Ben helps me with more references, the Escorza brothers let me do what I feel is gonna work. For example on issue four, we did the Hiroto clan and I had no idea what to doSo Tom gave me lots of old books and Ben helped me with a lot of different photographs and drawings of old Japanese samurai.
Ben Bishop: Kevin was having me watch all the Kurosawa movies.
Luis Antonio Delgado: Ton of references and that was cool. And I’m always trying to make it easy for people to follow the narrative without actually reading the words. You can see depending of the coloring, that there are different things happening. So that’s what I’m trying to do and just do it as fast as I can. They say it’s an orchestra. And I believe the job of a colorist is like being the drummer in a band. I’m the one in the back and doing the drums and keeping everyone together and trying to step up.
Tom Waltz: It might be worth mentioning for the first series, Kevin did all the layouts and all the storyboarding. Kevin likes these big cinematic double page spreads. He really does a lot of that stuff. I think him doing all the layouts and stuff helped build a world and now we don’t need him to do that. We’ve gone through this, we don’t need coach anymore. Just tell us what you want and we know how to do it.
Isaac Escorza: There’s been amazing writing during the whole process. Kevin has helped with layouts and has been respectful about the art and the final result. He gives us a chance to do what we want the way we think it should go without stepping on it. Same with the rest of the team, it has been pretty fluid work. We have received a lot of support from all of them.
Esau Escorza: It’s also important to mention the whole thing was an adventure for ourselves. We didn’t know what the story was about, we were not fans of the turtles. We read the story page by page. We didn’t have an idea of the ending. We were just one page before the end and we didn’t know what was going to happen. So we were finally like “OK, what’s gonna happen next?”.
Tom Waltz: I have to admit, it was same for the writers, we didn’t know what was gonna happen.
And yet it works. Whatever you guys have, it works.
Tom Waltz: I’m glad you say. Obviously, you know, there’s delays and we hate to do that to the fans and to the publisher. I think that they know it’s working. It’s not optimal, especially when they’re scheduling solicits but the proof’s in the pudding and they know that and then they’ve been very supportive.
When we talk aboutThe Last Roninfranchise, the biggest thing to come from it is this new generation of turtles. I can appreciate that when you look at these new turtles, you know exactly which one is which, and they’ve each got a very distinct personality. Can you guys talk a little bit about creating all of these new turtles?
Ben Bishop: We were at the CGC signing in Florida and Kevin and Tom are like “You’re gonna be designing the new turtles.”. So Kevin threw me this big pile of reference photos of every species imaginable. I just stared at it for a couple hours and then I put it away. Let it sink into my subconscious and I just went wild and ended up doing 12 different designs. 12 babies and 12 teenagers because we knew throughout Lost Years you’d see them grow from three to six to nine all the way up to Re-Evolution, where they’re now Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The big note though was they need to be recognizable without bandanas of different colors and without different weapons because they’re all going to use all four weapons. So we just worked really hard to pick from those 12 and I think there was a lot of crossover with everyone’s favorites. I was showing them to other turtle artists and getting all their feedback. I was trying to very subconsciously pay homage to all the other artists I looked up to. And Kevin’s big note on the first page that I did in issue one was “Wider head! Wider head!”. And I started leaning into the Jim Henson look. It’s been crazy to see them grow and now we got toys which Luis and I get to do packaging art for.
Luis Antonio Delgado: I chose the colors for the turtles and I remember enjoying designing them. If you look at an Odyn, he’s the only one that has colors similar to the original turtles because I didn’t want to go “Nothing similar to the original turtles.”. I enjoyed the warmer colors for Moja. Maybe that’s the reason why she’s my favorite because she’s the only one that has warmer colors. The other ones are cooler colors. And I also remember really liking Ben’s idea of making Uno change colors between white and darker. So that was pretty nice, Uno is my second favorite design. I didn’t know there was that many different types of turtles. I thought they were just all green.
Ben Bishop: But now they’re passed on to the Escorzas. They’re drawing the current stuff with the four new turtles and I’m back on flashbacks. So now they get to run with all that which has been really amazing to see.
Esau Escorza: At the beginning, we were drawing without knowing what they were about, we didn’t know who was the leader. We did a cover and put Moja up first thinking she was the leader.
Tom Waltz: Obviously there’sfour personalities we all know and love with the turtles, so we weren’t going to mimic that but we didn’t want to completely go away from that. What you find in these turtles is there’s kind of a combination of things going on. So as far as like the base personalities, Uno is the most like Leonardo but he’s cocky like Raph might be. Moja is the moody Raph character who’s are actually the best leader of the group. She’s the one that can take charge. Ye is the Donatello but has some of the sensitivity that Michelangelo had. But Odyn looked like Michelangelo but we’re starting to see a little Raph can come out of him too.
Tom Waltz: We decided “What are modern sensibilities that modern fans would relate to?”. Because the 80s were pretty straightforward. To me, Ye seems like she’s on autistic spectrum. Moja has some emotional issues she’s very moody. Uno obviously has to get his ego under control. And Odyn can be a little oversensitive, and that can be a detriment at times and a boon at other times. And those are the things we wanted to lean into. And that’s why there is no clear cut “Who’s the leader? Who’s this? Who’s that?”. Everybody can adapt, which kind of mirrors their weapons. We didn’t want it to be one note per turtle. It’s like an orchestra, everybody has a part to play. Sometimes they get a solo but most time they’re playing together and that’s been fun. It’s been a fun challenge. But I also feel like it’s what sets them apart from the original turtles and I like that because they should be different because we don’t want everyone to lose sight of the core four that got us to this point.
Ben Bishop: It’s all about his legacy. It’s like they’re living up to everything and trying to do their best job and that’s I know that’s how Luis feels. That’s how I feel.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin II Re-Evolution #3is available on October 9th from IDW Publishing.
