5 out of 5

As I read through this book, amazed, page by page, I played a game with myself: double the price, double the page count – how high would I be willing to go and still happily purchase the book?

…Within reason, that number could go pretty dang high.

I own a select few art books, and some of them are excellent. Some of them are okay. With Ciro Nieli’s ‘The Art of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’, I’ve now been given a new high bar for what excellent means, and a better understanding of what makes some of those other books just okay. I’ll admit upfront that having familiarity with the entire run of the 2012 Nick TMNT show to which this book is dedicated is likely required for its maximal enjoyment, but then again: why would you be buying this if you weren’t a fan? Obviousness of the correlation aside, Nieli doesn’t buffer anything – there’s no introduction explaining who the Turtles are, or what each arc of the show was about. There are copious comments on what the intentions were and the efforts required to achieve those intentions; however, context is on you. And I realized how immersive that is, and how rewarding that is; not because it “justifies” fandom, but because it makes the above assumption I made – you’re a fan, aren’t you? – and gets down to business. Combined with being honed by the guy who actually worked on the show (as opposed to a third party collecting notes – though all power to them, because I’m positive that’s a tough job), there was never any separation between the passion of Nieli for the material, and his appreciation (and then by extension, our appreciation) of the immense talents of his cohorts, and the reader. These are key elements to what make this book a perfect purchase.

Structurally, we get design sketches, models, and comments, all jammed on to widescreen pages. So much visual info jammed in that I wished for full-page spreads of each design sheet and whatnot, prompting my internal ask above for more pages and more material. The design is busy but never overwhelming, though, and the large size of the hardcover allows for poring over all those scribbles and notes. Nieli has a blurb or two on each page about the difficulty of character rigging, or the rush to design sets, and the tie-in between the difficulties of achieving what he’s explaining and what you’re seeing on the page is clear. Going back to my experience watching the show, I remember thinking that the first season was fairly basic, design-wise, and he speaks to how limited the set had to be for budget and time reasons, and yet, you get a glimpse of the insane amount of planning that went into background details that – at least for me – flew over my head. It’s truly eye-opening, and inspiring, given how much classic TMNT influence (as well as other 70s, 80s, and 90s genre influences) got packed in there. We step through primarily season by season, from NY to the farmhouse to space to Tales of the TMNT, getting a runthrough of characters and props and backgrounds from each era.

There are no ‘secrets,’ per se, but Nieli is also speaking to us as an animator – talking about rigging, and storyboards, etc. To the latter, I’ve never gotten much from looking at storyboards (which are often an extra on DVDs / blurays), but reading Ciro’s appreciation for the boards his staff would make for the show – and we obviously only get the most select few here – made me appreciate, once more, how much has to go on behind the scenes to even bring the most simple thing to life. While I’m not suggesting we’re talking direct shop with the guy, this frankness is another aspect that brings the whole book alive, as you don’t feel like you’re handheld through a tour, but rather getting some honest feedback on how great (and at times stressful) working on the show was – especially for (as confirmed in Kevin Eastman’s introduction) a true fanboy like Nieli.

Capping it off are a few extra pages which will make any TMNT collector jealous, showcasing some of the one-off stuff made for conventions and things, and I would pay goddamn gold for one of those TMNT hockey jerseys.

There is one reviewer on Amazon who was apparently expecting this to be a TMNT retrospective and not specific to the 2012 Nick show, but assuming you’re not that guy and that you, eh, read product summaries a little bit before purchasing – this is worth it. At full price. A bevy of interesting snippets; a chance to study details that blip by in a second on the show; and a great review of what was one of the greatest representations of TMNT in their multi-decade history.