I learned of this “treasury edition” a few weeks back, and asked about it at the comic shop, and was put down for an order. For the sheer physical size of the thing, and the price of usual comics, $9.99 seemed like a steal for this. Of course, now that it finally came in and I had a chance to look at it, it did not turn out to be exactly what I’d expected.
I’d expected this to simply be an over-sized reprint of the original issue–just the original issue in its entirety, blown up to this massive size. Instead, it turned out that this is basically a companion piece to the issue (blown up to this massive size).
We get a look at the original layouts to the issue, beautifully reproduced–so much so that I kept looking closer: the intro to the volume references the ballpoint pen, and darned if everything doesn’t look like Kevin Eastman himself actually drew on blank pages and handed the result to me! I also like the annotations throughout…
Once beyond the layouts for the entire issue, we get a look at many of the final pages in various states (pencils-then-inks, etc); again annotated, allowing quite a look at the process that went into the issue.
And then at the back of the volume, we get the original notes/outline to the entire City at War story, which proved interesting reading (and has bee all the more eager to dive into the story when my copy of the TMNT Ultimate Collection vol. 4 arrives in the next few days!)
As I said above…this is very much an oversized publication, as you can see here. While this wasn’t exactly what I expected, and I would have gladly paid $15-$20 for this plus the full-size pages of the original issue, it’s quite a worthwhile volume.
The original Eastman & Laird run, the Tales run, Return to New York, and City at War are my favorite of the original series. And the original printing of #50 back in 1992 or so was offhand THE first issue of the “real” TMNT that I ever bought/owned, so it has special significance for me.
I even have a City at War poster that’s hung in my living room for the last couple years since I acquired it that I fully intend to get framed one of these days.
Filed under: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (IDW) | Tagged: City at War, IDW, Ninja Turtles, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, TMNT, TMNT 50, Treasury Edition | 2 Comments »
Comic Reviews by Walt 