Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin by BIWIE

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Thread for discussing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin, reviewed by BIWIE!

[mossy sorrel]

@potent silo Your assessment of Kevin Eastman is incorrect given he had a hand in every single page of artwork in the book

Kevin is also primarily known as an artist not a writer so that’s just kinda funny to me

[potent silo]

Yeah in layout, not in drawing the final page

Just because you can direct, doesn't mean you can act

[potent silo]

In that case he is primarily a bad artist and secondarily a good writer :)

[mossy sorrel]

Well also every single design came from Kevin down to the smallest details. As an example

[mossy sorrel]

You don’t think this looks awesome?

[potent silo]

No, I don't. I think the left one looks silly, the right one is decent but Bishop and the Escorza's are far better

[mossy sorrel]

Why silly?

[potent silo]

Oh yeah clearly he had a big hand in it and that's awesome to see, really cool to see a writer being so involved with every step, but again, just because you can direct doesn't mean you can act. I could dream up these details too, and probably make a much worse looking sketch for it too, but I can't draw it nearly as well as the other artists on the book. I can do the design, but not the final drawing

[mossy sorrel]

I’d argue a page like that shows Kevin’s strengths as a storyteller even if you don’t like him as a draftsman

[mossy sorrel]

What about a page like this?

[potent silo]

Idk it just doesn't look good to me, not horrible either but I definitely wouldn't have wanted more than what he did

[mossy sorrel]

More?

[potent silo]

Probably the best drawing of his I've seen so far, this is actually pretty good

[potent silo]

Well he did like 3 or 4 times ~4 pages (in full I mean), I wouldn't have wanted him to do more than that

I would have wanted more Bishop though, his art was 🔥

[mossy sorrel]

Ben Bishop was intended to draw all the flashbacks originally

However the first issue had massive production issues that included almost the entire comic being redrawn so Kevin had to step in and contribute the narrated flashbacks himself which wasn’t the initial plan. Tom Waltz his co-writer loved what he did tho and kept him on those flashbacks

[potent silo]

Oh definitely, like I said I do like that he did some pages all by himself, I absolutely think it's an improvement on the book from a storytelling and craftsman perspective, but I would not want him to do more than what he did bc from a visual perspective I don't think it looks that good, at least not nearly as good as the other artists

[potent silo]

Honestly that's cool to know, and weirdly I'm happy that's what happened then

[mossy sorrel]

It was crazy to see in real time because the preview pages by Andy Kuhn got completely redone by the Escorza Brothers last minute so the previews were inaccurate

[potent silo]

Wait there was originally a different main artist?

Now I'm curious to see those previews

[mossy sorrel]

Also I’ll note that currently Kevin Eastman is working on the semi-autobiography Drawing Blood and in it Ben Bishop draws the present day story himself but on flashbacks it’s the inverse of Last Ronin with Ben on layouts and Kevin on finished art. Here’s an example

[mossy sorrel]

Like I said the entire first issue was redrawn outside of Ben Bishops flashback which came in last minute. In fact Kevin and Tom thought Ben’s flashback in that issue looked “too cute” for future flashbacks but couldn’t change anything about the one in the first issue because it was so last minute. So they kept it in feeling it worked for this specific flashback, but told Ben to make it more serious and realistic for the ones in future issues

[mossy sorrel]

Andy Kuhns art had a rougher look to them that gave it an even bigger Dark Knight Returns vibe

[potent silo]

I mean this looks quite good! Why did they switch last minute?

[mossy sorrel]

It’s unknown to this day, all that’s known is Andy dropped out after drawing like 90% of issue one and they had practically no time to have someone redraw it

[potent silo]

Huh, interesting

[mossy sorrel]

Miraculously Kevin was aware of the Escorza Brothers a duo that could draw it quickly thanks to their collaborative work ethic

[potent silo]

I'd have to compare when I'm back home but honestly in terms of vibe I might prefer this

[mossy sorrel]

lol I know I just threw a ton of text at ya

[potent silo]

I mean it’s interesting stuff! Honestly the story around this story might be just as interesting as the story itself XD