3 out of 5

Again, review is based on the reprinting and not necessarily the contents.

We’re getting to a point now where I’m not sure these comics are benefiting from the colorizations by Tom Smith’s Scorpion Studios.  Excusing my nits with the numbering and volumizing of these issues for the moment, the initial run of Turtles books – which we’ll call issues #1 – 11 – were, of course, responsible from the get-go of the popularity of the brand, but also showed Eastman and Laird learning the ropes of comics and defining their style.  Their combined efforts (underground rough-hewn sensibilities funneled through Pete’s Kirby influence and Eastman’s Heavy Metal influences) and the duo-tone inking paper definitely made for a really unique, heavy look with the artists’ fluid pencils, but the thickness of the line work and hefty detailing sometimes made discerning action in the B&W books difficult.  So the colorizing (and later printings) were a welcome dusting off of the work.  But pressures mounted due to the attention the title was receiving and 6 months would pass between issues 9 and 10, and then, starting with book 12 – which is IDW’s issue 1 of volume 2, fair enough – there was an agreement that Kev and Pete would work separately, plus there’d be some fill-ins.  Issue 12 is all Laird; issue 14 (issue 2 here…) is all Eastman, plus Talbot on inks, 15 (3) is Laird with Lawson on inks, and then a step toward what would happen moreso in the future – 17 (4) was written by Kev, penciled / inked by Talbot, until, finally, in ’89 we got the Return to New York storyline on which K & P teamed up once more for writing and mixed hands drawing / inking with their Mirage crew.  But what’s most notable about these issues – excepting, maybe, Kev’s solo issue (14), as his style hasn’t changed all that much – is that everyone starts to learn how to best take advantage of white space on the page.  And looking at the colorizations – it ruins that effect.  It even ruins the art in some instances, as all of the duo-tone awesomeness of Pete’s solo isues, 12 and 15, is lost behind Scorpion Studios ugly and bland color blends for the backgrounds.  Even though I dislike the issue 12 story for being sort of dumb, the art is classic Laird, but looking at the treatment it gets here, he looks like an amateur, which isn’t fair.  I glanced back at the original copy to verify my appreciation of his work and the art definitely still holds up.  The only issue in this set that works acceptably with colors is Talbot’s book (17 / 4), but only really because it’s so steeped in shadow, so we’re limited on those boring digital mixes.

So while I’d say volume 1, colored, has merit, the issues covered in volume 2 are better appreciated in their original form; even on the old paper the work pops in a way that it doesn’t here, save when Scorpion Studios has a fully detailed page to play around with, which the Return storyline offers moreso than the other books.  Still, though, this is feeling more like a workman mentality than a labor of love; the pages don’t seem rich, just, here, colored.  And there are coloring mistakes here and there – gloves go missing, clothing changes colors – which adds to that “just do the job” sense.

More on an external note, I’m still bugged that the re-numbering isn’t mention in some note on the inside cover or something, and if the idea was to only include Pete / Kev written issues for Color Classics, with Volume 2 they’ve side-stepped that rule a couple of times with some skipped issues.  Lastly: Lawson and Talbot aren’t credited unless they were credited on one of the original story pages.  Otherwise we only get “story and art by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird” on the inside front cover, which isn’t always true.

For the regular (nowadays) cover price and quality printing, this is an acceptable job.  And certainly if you don’t have the originals – here ya go.  But as a collector and fan, these books are just now getting added to the collection and not really appreciated as worthwhile updates of the initial printings.