Seeing 20 minutes of this special Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie event at FanExpo this past summer and waiting until this weekend to finally see the whole thing was absolute torture. Waiting for someone to finally upload it to the Internet was probably even worse. But watching it today (twice even) made it all worthwhile.

Epic. Turtles Forever was awesome. It was so awesome.

It’s hard to find the words to describe what this means. It may very well have been the greatest gift ever given to a fandom. I’m serious. What other fandom has ever gotten something like this that was pulled off so well?

(Semi-Spoilerish from here on. Proceed with Caution!)

The 1987 Turtles looked just like they had stepped off the old cartoon. The voices weren’t there, but I knew that going in. The goofiness and silliness of the ’87 Turtles show was played up in a major way, more so than the show really was, but they prove themselves in the end. Donatello really steals the whole movie.

So many references and call-backs, it was just a total blast to watch. Then, the original comic book Turtles appear and it becomes the biggest piece of fan service of all time. Lines of dialogue lifted straight from that first issue, repurposed for this new story as if they were always meant to be that way.

I want to talk more but I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet. If you were a child of the 80’s, or just wish you were, you must see this.

Now that Viacom has purchased the rights to the TMNT, Turtles Forever truly marks the end of an era. When I first heard the news regarding the buyout, I was shocked. But after watching this, I feel really good about the whole thing. The era has ended by going back through 25 years of history and returning to the source. You just can’t ask for anything better than that. Now I can earnestly look forward to what comes next.

But I will say this. When the Turtles find out about the multiverse of different versions of themselves, the ’87 turtles yell “Awesome!“. Well, they’re right, it is awesome. It is awesome that these characters have so many different interpretations and revisions, and that they’ve entertained fans all over the world for a quarter of a century. Be they from comics, cartoons, video games, movies, and whatever else Nickelodeon will wind up doing with them, Ninja Turtles are awesome. And they will be, FOREVER!

Cowabunga.

I mean…

Sayonara.

Here is am about a week ago in my Jedi robe for Halloween.

The look clearly suits me. But soon I am going to shave the beard down to my traditional goatee.

Sayonara.

It’s been quite an eventful time.

The weekend before last I saw the Astro Boy movie. You can read my spoilerific review here. Or you can just go see it yourself, which you should do, because the movie is great, the critics who don’t like it are morons who missed the point entirely, and Astro is one of the greatest characters ever who was created by the God of Manga and thus deserves our support. So there.

After that I took part in the second Manga Workshop taught by Svetlana Chmakova. I created a manga about chefs. I’ll have to finish it some day. Good stuff all around.

Then, this past week at the art academy I teach at, I wound up working 4 days in a row. Included in those days was a special Halloween workshop, where I taught about drawing monsters. Of course, since it was Halloween, I had to wear a costume. So I went as a Jedi. I don’t have any in-costume pictures yet, but I was a pretty cool looking Jedi if I do say so myself.

Of course, to really pull of the Jedi look, I grew a full beard this month. Here’s a picture I just took.

I’ve gotten used to it and I’d have to say that it’s actually not a bad look in spite of the funny face I’m making there. Now that my Jedi performance is behind me, I could just shave it back down to my previous goatee and sideburns look. But I wonder if I should keep it for awhile longer. Hmmm. Thoughts?

Sayonara.