Please welcome our friend, Kevin Eastman, back to Puyallup for the 2025 Washington State Summer Con. Turtle fans buckle up for a BIG year of guests, appearances, and surprises!
In the early 80’s, in the middle of a late-night drawing session, Kevin Eastman doodled a new character he dubbed a “Ninja Turtle” to make his collaborator Peter Laird laugh—several sillier sketches and a final drawing of four characters later “Eastman and Laird’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” had officially entered the universe!
Self-published in May of 1984 the first issue sold out of its 3000 copies overnight and quickly became a fan favorite. Catching the eye of Merchandising Agents and Hollywood Producers, Eastman and Laird maintained full control of their creations while guiding them through Toy Licensing, TV Series adaptation, as well as Feature Films, and by early 1990 the TMNT’s were number one in all three categories.
In between TMNT projects, Eastman launched a creator friendly publishing company, “Tundra Publishing” where projects like “The Crow” “From Hell” “Madman” and “Understanding Comics” first flourished, as well as purchased and published the world renowned “Heavy Metal Magazine” for more than twenty-five years.
In 2020 based on an original 1987 concept by Kevin and Peter, Kevin adapted and launched The Last Ronin with longtime TMNT Writer/Co-Writer Tom Waltz. The epic tale quickly became the TMNT publishing event of the decade, both a critical success, and a New York Times Best Seller. The series continued with The Last Ronin: Lost Years in 2023 and 2024The Last Ronin II: Re-Evolution.