Peter Laird
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Peter Laird | |
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Born | Peter Alan Laird January 27, 1954 North Adams, Massachusetts, U.S. |
Area(s) |
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Notable works | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles |
Collaborators | Kevin Eastman, Jim Lawson |
Awards | Inkpot Award (1989)[1] |
Peter Alan Laird (born January 27, 1954) is an American
Early life and career
Laird was born on January 27, 1954, in North Adams, Massachusetts.[4][5][6] Toward the end of 1983, Laird was earning just ten dollars an illustration from a local newspaper in Dover, New Hampshire. He was also doing illustrations for fanzines like The Oracle.[7]
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
In May 1984, Laird and
Laird's newspaper experience led to the duo creating "a four-page press kit",
The Turtles phenomenon saw the duo invited to their first
Unexpected success
That the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles became such a success (and in such a short space of time) came as a surprise to both Eastman and Laird. Laird has stated on several occasions that:[7]
"..start[ing] the Turtles.. was a goof; it was not anything we envisioned directing our lives in any way, shape, or form. It was like, "Hey, this looks like fun! Let's
self-publish it! Let's see what happens!" ...Suddenly, and just completely out of the blue, this Turtles phenomenon emerged. And really – from day one – just took over. It was a rapidly accelerating process which culminated in essentially taking over our lives. Completely."[7]
This led to increased pressures on the two creators (and the team which they formed to help them), including a prolonged period (about a year) of artist's block in Laird. The "incredible growth and complexity of the business" that sprang up around their instantly-successful Turtles properties led to Laird's "suddenly discover[ing] to my horror that I no longer enjoyed drawing. It was a real shock, because if I ever had anything that I could rely on... it was that I loved to draw."[7]
Laird and Eastman's creations went on to become a popular cultural phenomenon, forcing both of them to take regular sabbaticals from the comic to deal with the day to day pressures of running what had become a multimedia franchise. Eastman sold his share of the franchise, with the exception of a small continuing income participation, to Laird and the Mirage Group on June 1, 2000.
Animation
Although ostensibly over-seeing the animated Turtles projects through Mirage, Laird had minimal hands-on involvement in the development of the
Following a successful deal to revive the Turtles theatrically, Laird put Volume Four on hold to develop the new film, leaving several plot lines unresolved. Tales of the TMNT was thought to go on hiatus in 2008, and the franchise's future beyond its on-screen presence was uncertain, but staff confirmed that this was not the case. It was confirmed on Steve Murphy's blog that Peter Laird was intending to return to Volume 4 and that the title would return, distributed digitally by Mirage.[13]
Mirage Studios
With the success of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Eastman and Laird hired a core group of artists to help with the increasing workload, beginning with Eastman's high school friend Steve Lavigne, brought on in 1984 as a letterer.[citation needed]
In 1985, Eastman and Laird hired
Eastman and Laird along with Brown, Dooney, Lavigne and Lawson toured extensively over the years, making personal appearances and attending many comic book conventions. As the Turtles' popularity increased, further people were added to the studio, including Eric Talbot (who attended Eastman and Lavigne's old high school), writer Stephen Murphy, and Brown's friend, Dan Berger, who was brought in from Ohio to ink the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures title from Archie Comics. Aside from Eastman (whose creative differences and other pursuits saw him leave and sell his interest to Laird and Mirage), these individuals have remained with Mirage to the present. Stephen Murphy stepped down from his position as the managing editor in the middle of 2007 in favor of Dan Berger; Murphy remained as the creative director.[14] In 1988, Mirage Studios participated in the drafting of the Creator's Bill of Rights for comic book creators.[citation needed]
The Xeric Foundation
In addition to his other interests, Laird founded the Xeric Foundation, a
Origins
Laird's "experience with the Turtles and self-publishing" was a learning process that, he felt "would be very valuable to other people to go through" as well, "in teaching creators about themselves, about life [and] about the hard reality of business." He cites the summits he, Eastman, Scott McCloud, Dave Sim and others had (which led directly to the formalizing of the "Creator's Bill of Rights," setting out in writing the necessary working arrangements that comics creators felt ought to be met regarding ownership of their work and proper remuneration, etc.) in informing his decision to set up the foundation, but also notes that he received "many requests for money," necessitating the creation of the Xeric Foundation's charitable end simply to deal with such requests "in an organized fashion."[7]
Indeed, when asked in an interview[15] on the Project Fanboy website, Laird was quoted as saying:
The initial impetus for creating the Xeric Foundation was frustration – when the Turtle thing started getting really huge, people started coming out of the woodwork to ask for money. Many of them were legitimate charitable organizations or creators needing funding, but there were also quite a few ridiculous things – like the total stranger who asked me for a quarter of a million dollars to fund his general store. It got to the point where I was getting overwhelmed with making these kinds of decisions, and it was suggested to me that a foundation might be a good way to "separate the wheat from the chaff", providing official and clearly delineated channels through which people looking for money had to make their way.
Laird recalled that the publication of the first issue of his and Eastman's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic came about thanks to a loan the two secured from Quentin Eastman, Kevin Eastman's uncle. Although the two were able to pay him back swiftly, it led Laird to speculate about what could have been: "if we hadn't gotten that loan from him at that point in our lives, it might have taken us a couple more months to raise that money from other sources, and who knows what might have happened differently as a result of that delay?" It occurred to him that "there must be so many times where a self-publishing venture can sink or float on the strength of" a relatively small amount of money, so he felt a desire to use some of his "good fortune, in the financial sense, to help people out" (and, in addition to the creators, the foundation also aids those "involved in charitable organizations").[7]
Moreover, he cites "[a] big difference" between his and Eastman's personal Turtles situation and the charitable foundation as being "that the Xeric grants are not loans, which have to be paid back, but actual grants, which do not." He "credit[s] Kendall Clark, who has run the foundation for me from the beginning, as one of the main reasons it has worked as well as it has... she's done a wonderful job."[15]
Naming and process
The naming of the foundation "originated out of a Scrabble game with [Laird's] brother Don," "Xeric" simply being "a word [he] like[d]" ostensibly meaning dry and desertlike – but which ultimately "has absolutely no direct connection with the foundation."[7]
The creative side of the foundation involves the usual application process, but in addition, the foundation began with "an advisory committee made up of three... people working in the industry" whose input is sought on how best to proceed with each application. Submissions are evaluated prior to Laird's involvement, and then he makes the ultimate decisions based on their recommendations. Laird stated in 1993 that: "...knock on wood, God willing, and the creek don't rise, if we go on for another couple of decades, and I'm able to put more money into the basic funding of the Xeric Foundation, then the amount of money that can be given out can really be raised significantly." He hoped that ultimately the figure can be raised from "thousands of dollars" to "hundreds of thousands of dollars," to support an increasing number of large and small projects.[7]
Other work
In a 1993 interview with
Laird: ...Ask me how many other comic books I've drawn?
CBR: Okay, how many other comic books have you drawn?
Laird: Zero!
CBR: All right, how many book covers and album jackets have you done?
Laird: Zero! Zero! It's all been Turtles![7]
Since that time, Laird has been able to find time to pursue some other comic book work, including publishing Stupid Heroes, and the graphic novel trilogy Planet Racers, with
In December 2019, issue #100 of IDW Publishing's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic series featured a teaser ad for an upcoming comic project titled The Last Ronin in which the prospect of a possible reunion and cooperation between Laird and Eastman was held out.[16] The project was confirmed in April 2020,[17] but was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and ultimately manifested in the fall of that year.[18]
References
- ^ Inkpot Award
- ^ Greenberg, Harvey R. (April 15, 1990). "Just How Powerful Are Those Turtles?". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-08-07.
- ^ McGill, Douglas C. (December 25, 1988). "DYNAMIC DUO: Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird; Turning Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Into a Monster". The New York Times. Retrieved November 10, 2022.
- ^ Comics Buyer's Guide #1650; February 2009. Page 107
- ^ Miller, John Jackson (June 10, 2005). "Comics Industry Birthdays". Comics Buyer's Guide. Archived from the original on February 18, 2011.
- Lambiek Comiclopeida. Archivedfrom the original on July 18, 2022. Retrieved August 1, 2022.
- ^ ISBN 1-55611-355-2
- ^ a b Bob Burden's Mysterymen Presskit: Kevin Eastman. Accessed April 22, 2008
- ^ ComicBookDb: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1. Accessed April 22, 2008
- ^ Pages from the Press Kit can be seen here Archived 2006-05-12 at the Wayback Machine on Eastman's Heavy Metal website.
- ^ David Merrill "The Atlanta Fantasy Fair" Archived 2015-05-19 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed April 22, 2008
- ^ a b c Daniel Robert Epstein interview with Peter Laird, c2002/2003 Archived 2008-09-05 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed April 22, 2008
- ^ "CCJ" interviews Steve Murphy, July 10, 2007. Accessed June 27, 2008 Archived June 20, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Outgoing editor Steve Murphy on the Turtles past, present and future" by Benjamin Ong Pang Kean at Newsarama, July 9, 2007 Archived April 18, 2009, at the Wayback Machine. Accessed June 27, 2008.
- ^ a b Project Fanboy interview with Peter Laird
- ^ "City at War: The End". Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #100 (IDW Publishing)
- ^ "Inside EASTMAN & LAIRD's Reunion with TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES In Future Story THE LAST RONIN Preview". Newsarama. 9 February 2024. Archived May 2, 2020, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Burlingame, Russ (October 20, 2022). "Eastman and Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin Variant Covers Revealed". ComicBook.com. Retrieved March 29, 2023.