Kevin Eastman

Kevin Brooks Eastman (born May 30, 1962) is an American comic book writer and artist best known for co-creating the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with Peter Laird. Eastman was also formerly the editor and publisher of the magazine Heavy Metal.

Early life and career

Eastman was born in Portland, Maine. He attended Westbrook High School in Westbrook, Maine, with comic book illustrator Steve Lavigne. He grew up a comic book fan, with Jack Kirby as his idol and Kamandi as his favorite title of his.

In 1983, he worked in a restaurant while he searched for publishers for his comics. He met a waitress who was attending the University of Massachusetts Amherst and followed her to Northampton, Massachusetts. While searching for a local underground newspaper to publish his work, he began a professional relationship with Peter Laird, who worked in nearby Dover, New Hampshire, and the two collaborated for a short time on various comics projects.

In May 1984, Eastman and Laird self-published the first black & white issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The forty-page oversized comic had an initial print run of 3,275 copies and was largely funded by a $1,000 loan from Eastman's uncle Quentin. It was published by the duo's Mirage Studios, a name chosen because, as Eastman says, "there wasn't an actual studio, only kitchen tables and couches with lap boards." By September 1985, their first issue had received three additional printings.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Laird's newspaper experience led to the two creating a four-page press kit, which included a story outline and artwork. They sent the press kit to 180 television and radio stations as well as to the Associated Press and United Press International. This led to widespread press coverage of both the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Mirage Studios itself, creating a demand for the comic.

Their fifth issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was released in November 1985, and was downsized to the more common American comics-format and size. The previous four issues were also reprinted in this size and format with new colored covers. Also in 1985, Solson Publications released How to Draw Eastman and Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Solson would follow this up with the six-issue Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Authorized Martial Arts Training Manual as well as one issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Teach Karate volume in 1987.

Licensing Mirage's Turtles comic led to a widening media presence for the heroes. Eastman and Laird began to widely merchandise their property. Dark Horse Miniatures produced a set of 15 lead figurines for role-playing gamers and collectors, Palladium Books produced a role-playing game featuring the Turtles, and First Comics reprinted in four volumes the first eleven issues as color trade paperback collections. A five-part televised cartoon mini-series based on the Turtles debuted in December 1987. The half-hour episodes were produced by and the animation was directed by from scripts by David Wise and Patti Howeth. The mini-series was successful, leading to a full series, with the mini-series forming the first season. The series had a 9-year, 10-season, 193-episode run. Bob Burden writes:

within days of it airing it was apparent that the TMNT would prove every bit as popular for the television audience as it had been for the comic readers. From there, Surge Licensing formed an unstoppable creative marketing powerhouse that set a new standard of excellence in the licensing and merchandising industries. Eastman also made a brief cameo in Out of the Shadows, and made a voice-over cameo in Mutant Mayhem.

Eastman and Laird parting ways Creative differences began to strain Eastman and Laird's partnership. In an interview in 2002, Laird noted that the two hadn't spent much time together since 1993. Eastman moved to California while Laird stayed in Massachusetts.

On June 1, 2000, Laird and the Mirage Group purchased Eastman's ownership in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles property and corporations. Eastman wanted to move on to other projects. The buyout was completed on March 1, 2008.

In 2011, Eastman began working with the TMNT series again as a writer and artist on the IDW comic series, as well as an adviser on the 2014 reboot of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film series. Eastman is said to have a cameo in the film as a doctor, and has voiced the character Ice Cream Kitty in the 2012 CGI series.

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 Eastman and Laird was held out. The project was confirmed in April 2020, with a TBD release date sometime in the summer, and was subsequently released in October 2020.

Tundra

Foundation While co-managing Mirage Studios, Eastman and Laird often spoke of the difficulties in maintaining creative control of their work. Eastman decided to address this problem by using his own personal knowledge and connections to help other creators. Approaching Laird with his ideas, Eastman was met with a less than positive response:

Moreover, Eastman provided a forum for Marvel and DC creators to work on projects that they could not otherwise realize:

Basically, I'd meet them at conventions and they'd said they're stuck doing Spider-Man, they had a wife and a kid at home, and they had to make ends meet. But if they really had a chance, they said they'd really do this [at Tundra] and I'd hear this repeatedly. So, I went back to those artists because I had the money and said I'd give them the chance. I asked them what they'd like to do. They could pick their dream projects that they'd wanna do and I would provide the funding so that they could survive and they didn't have to do Spider-Man for a year and I'll fund the projects and I just wanted to make my money back from the profits to keep my company going.

Eastman initially thought that his experience at Mirage gave him "a pretty good grasp of what a publisher should be, and what a publisher needs to do," although he swiftly realized that "Tundra was not like publishing the Turtles." closing its (solo) doors after just three years. Although Eastman ended up on KSP's board, Kitchen Sink Press itself closed down in 1999, with Eastman losing between $9 and $14 million once the dust settled. Eastman continued to serve as publisher of the magazine until 2020, and was a minority investor in the new Heavy Metal.

Other work Aside from his work on multiple Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles projects, and as publisher of Tundra Publishing, Eastman created Fistful of Blood, a black and white graphic novel featuring a blend of influences from Spaghetti Western and horror. The book featured art by Simon Bisley and was published by Heavy Metal.

Eastman has acted in a small number of films, including Guns of El Chupacabra in 1997 and The Rock n' Roll Cops in 2003. He also had a supporting role in the 2004 Troma film Tales from the Crapper. Before that, he had a cameo in the 2000 sequel to The Toxic Avenger called Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV and had a small role in the first TMNT movie as a garbage collector. He also wrote one episode of the animated children's series Corn & Peg.

He was the subject of an interview in the documentary films Independents and Turtle Power: The Definitive History of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

In the early 2000s Eastman was commissioned to create artwork for the drum kit used by System of a Down drummer John Dolmayan, an avid comic book collector and vendor. Dolmayan commissioned Eastman to illustrate the Ninja Turtles on one drum, while the art for other drums in the kit, which depicted other characters and scenes, were produced by Simon Bisley, Tim Vigil, and Arthur Adams.

Art collection

Eastman purchased his first piece of original artwork ("a couple of pages that were penciled by Michael Golden and inked by Bob McLeod for Marvel Comics' Howard the Duck") at the Atlanta Fantasy Fair, the convention he and Laird attended in 1984.

Personal life

Family

Eastman has a son whom he had via surrogate. He was previously married to model and actress Julie Strain from 1995 to 2006.

Eastman married actress and producer Courtney Carr on October 5, 2013. They lived in San Diego with his son and pet dachshunds.

Religious beliefs Eastman grew up in a church-going Christian family. He considers himself both "Christian" and "spiritual", saying that what he most appreciates is Christianity's message of universal love, which he believes is shared by many other religions.

Explanatory notes