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KEVIN EASTMAN Creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Editor of Heavy Metal

Kevin Brooks Eastman is an American comic book artist. He is best known as the co-creator (with Peter Laird) of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Eastman is also the current owner, editor and publisher of the magazine Heavy Metal.

Kevin Eastman was born in Springvale, Maine. By 1983, he was "working in a restaurant and seeking underground publishers for his comix stories," having been collaborating with Pater Laird for a short while on various comics projects. The following year, in May 1984, Eastman and Peter Laird self-published (for $1200) the first black & white issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The forty-page oversized comic had an initial print run of 3000 copies, and was largely funded by a $1000 loan from Eastman's uncle Quentin, and published by the duos Mirage Studios, a name chosen because "there wasn’t an actual studio, only kitchen tables and couches with lap boards." By September 1985, that first issue had received a further 3 printings.

Laird's newspaper experience led to the two creating "a four-page press kit," that, according to Flaming Carrot-creator Bob Burden's own Mystery Men press-kit included "a story outline and artwork that they sent to 180 TV and radio stations," as well as both the Associated Press and United Press International. This led to widespread press coverage of both the TMNT property and Mirage Studios itself, creating "a demand for the interestingly-titled comic that caught everyone by surprise." With the solicitation of their second issue, Eastman and Laird's Turtles comic began a meteoric rise to success, bringing in advance orders of 15,000 copies - five times the initial print run of the first issue. This, Eastman has been quoted as saying:

With their (November 1985) fifth issue, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles downsized to the more "normal" American comics-format and size, and the previous four issues were also reprinted in this size and format with new, color, covers. Also in 1985, Solson Publishing released a "How to draw" volume entitled How to draw Eastman and Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Mirage's Turtles comic led to a widening media presence for the eponymous heroes: Eastman and Laird began to widely merchandise their property, including with Dark Horse Miniatures (who produced a set of 15 mm lead figurines for "role-playing gamers and collectors"), Palladium Books, who produced a role-playing game featuring the Turtles and with First Comics who, between 1986 and 1988, reprinted in four volumes the first eleven issues as color trade paperback collections.

Palladium's RPG brought the Turtles to the attention of licensing agent Mark Freedman, and the Turtles phenomenon took off, with the various characters soon appearing on "T-shirts, Halloween masks, coffee mugs, and all kinds of other paraphernalia." In December, 1987, a five-part televised cartoon mini-series based on the Turtles debuted. The half-hour episodes were produced by Osamu Yoshioka, and the animation was directed by Yoshikatsu Kasai from scripts by Eastman & Laird with David Wise and Patti Howeth, with initial help from "ad agency executive" Jerry Sachs. The success of the mini-series was swift, leading to a full (and ultimately a 9-year, 10-season, 194-episode run) series, with the mini-series forming the first season.
In January 1988, Eastman and Laird visited Playmates Toys Inc, who wished to market action figures based on the comic book - and now animated cartoon - series, further cementing the Turtles' place in history.

Multiple other Turtles comics, toys, books, games and other merchandising spin-offs have subsequently appeared, overseen, if not fully created, by Eastman and Laird. Paramount amongst these are three live action films - in 1990, 1991 and 1993 - a further two TV series' (Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation (1997) and a new self-titled 2003 series), and an animated feature film: TMNT (2007).

Eastman and Laird, as with many creative partnerships did not always see eye-to-eye, and their creative partnership became difficult.

On March 1, 2008 Peter Laird and the Mirage Group completed the buyout of Kevin's entire right, title, interest and income participation in the TMNT property and the four Mirage corporations involved in the ownership, management and protection of the TMNT. This event finalizes the transaction began on June 1, 2000.

Eastman founded the creator-friendly Tundra Publishing in 1990, to realize personal and other projects. Eastman felt obligated to expand it beyond theory and into practice, providing a creator-friendly forum for comics creators to work for a publisher while maintaining ownership of their work.

As part of Eastman's designs for Tundra were to produce personal projects of a more adult nature than the Turtles-oriented Mirage was geared towards, this saw Tundra fitting in the dubious middle-ground of the market. The relatively fledgling in-roads of comics and graphic novels into bookshops at the time, however, worked against Tundra.

In addition, Eastman swiftly became aware that Tundra and the Turtles differed considerably, not least since the latter was successful enough to effectively run itself, with a few 'nudges' "to keep it moving along." Tundra, on the other hand, dealt in new properties, which required "building from the ground up," and was "a lot more work" than Eastman had anticipated, growing far too quickly for comfort, and requiring considerable injections of time and money, rather than being profitable itself. In 1993, however, Tundra merged with/was brought out by Kitchen Sink Press, closing its (solo) doors after just three years.

Kevin Eastman has been a longtime fan of the Science fiction and fantasy magazine, much of whose content was translated from the French, and appeared in the original Métal Hurlant publication of which Heavy Metal is only the American-licensed incarnation. He cites it (after Jack Kirby) as bringing to his attention the "second greatest influence" on him as an artist, Richard Corben. He saw in its pages European art which had not been previously seen in the United States, as well as an underground comix sensibility that nonetheless "wasn't as harsh or extreme as some of the underground comix - but... definitely intended for an older readership."

Discovering that Heavy Metal had been put up for sale, and with one of Tundra's stated aims being to bring a more adult sensibility (and mature, adult readers) to comics overlapping with the magazine's target audience, Eastman decided that Heavy Metal was "the final piece of the puzzle", and looked into purchasing it.

Eastman also attempted to bring some European hardcover comics to America, using Heavy Metal to help serialize and both defray the costs and boost readership. Initial interest, however, was "fairly cool."

Eastman is married to actress and model Julie Strain. This relationship saw Strain star in the animated film Heavy Metal 2000, based on Eastman's magazine property Heavy Metal, and the direct to video sequel to the 1981 feature film Heavy Metal.

Being married to a model led to Eastman experimenting in photography himself, producing images (primarily of his wife) which are available on the Heavy Metal website, in galleries entitled "I Shot my Wife". This led to Strain taking up the camera herself, with some success, resulting in a number of books published by Heavy Metal Magazine of and by Strain-Eastman.

Eastman himself has himself also acted alongside his wife in a small number of films since the mid-to-late 1990s, and has acted as producer/co-producer on a couple of films, notably St. Patrick's Day (co-produced and featuring Julie Strain Eastman) in 1997.