Ah, the pre-Saturday morning cartoon drinking Turtles! Can you spot the Fugitoid and others in this jam packed page?
Eastman & Laird created this short story to address a rising voice in TMNT fandom: to see the turtles in color. So in cooperation with First Publishing, E & L drew out this 8 page story to become the first story ever where the Turtles would be seen in color. Finally, the world would see what colors those bandanas were (SPOILER: RED!)
A fun fact is that the entire 8 page bar scene chronologically takes place during TMNT issue #5, pages 13 & 14. Eastman and Laird were HUGE Star Wars fans and wanted to give their take on the classic "Cantina Scene." It was originally published in Grimjack #26 and predates TMNT #7 where Kevin painted a short Corben-drawn story for an insert. On top of that, instead of the usual small Duo-tone artboards that Mirage Studios used back then, these pages were drawn on 11 X 17 artboards that First provided, thus making these some of the largest of the early TMNT interior pages out there. The story would be reprinted a number of times through the decades well.
Kevin Eastman, in his book "Artobiography", said that this story is "By far one of the best drawn Eastman & Laird short stories." Cool. An amazing piece of TMNT history.
