4 crampons out of 5

This reprints the Archie TMNT 3-issue miniseries that kicked off the ongoing Archie series much beloved by fans.  Does it get a high rating by default?  Maybe.  But I am trying to rate this sort of within the TMNT-loving bubble, so buzz off if you don’t care.

Michael Dooney putted around the Mirage world – doing some Turtles work, creating the Gizmo miniseries – and always had a particular style to his work that was half way between incredibly detailed and amateurish looking.  It’s odd what triggers these style definitions to any given viewer’s eye.  Say, Jim Lawson, for example (who worked on the Turtles for years), definitely has a sloppy style that might’ve stemmed from an inability (or lack of desire) to draw more realistically, but it always felt like a fully evolved style to me, and I love his pencils.  Dooney, though, never felt like he fully carved out his own niche for whatever reason… or, rather, his work always and forever looks “indie.”  BUT, for all this vagueness, it is a particular look that’s suited to the half-comical half-serious world of the Turtles, as the look he gives his books are cartoons that are uncomfortably grounded in the real world.

See, he worked on the Archie miniseries, that’s why I bring ‘im up.

If you saw the cartoon but missed these books, it’s almost panel for panel and word for word from the first episode(s?), with some POV flourishes by Dooney and a couple extra visual gags that probably wouldn’t have been kosher for kiddy TV.  So the story isn’t particularly the draw here, and Dooney’s take on the already sort of hokey dialogue doesn’t spin it in any special way that makes it a must read.  It’s a collector’s thing.  And for collectors, you get a nice, thick, narrow-spine bound collection of three issues that are probably in bags and boards, somewhere lost in your collection.  It looks recolored to me, and the page quality is definitely better than the originals, giving the books a pretty fresh look.  I honestly can’t justify the 4 out of 5 ratings for a casual reader – I imagine this gag style of writing is a little silly for modern kids, and current Turtles readers who don’t need to own every little thing are probably best left to imagine the original animated series than read these adaptations.  But dedicated TMNT fans will love to have this collection, high production values from IDW giving a glossy sheen to our memories.