Tag Archives: ninja

Bodycount (1996) – TMNT’s Raph on a Rampage

Bodycount (1996), by Kevin Eastman and Simon Bisley, is a Ninja Turtles comic book with attitude. In many ways, they were trying hard to take the Turtles back from the hit TV series, back to their indie comic roots, and tap into the market of kids like me who had grown up with Raph, Mikey, Leo, and Donnie. In the end, the 4-part series is a grindhouse spectacle that hardly holds together. But who cares! It had lots of blood and boobs, Casey Jones and Raph being badasses, and a villain straight out of Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)

Bodycount 1996

And Julie Strained…
By the time the first comic came out, we — the kids who grew up on the first animated show — were teenagers ourselves, in high school. That’s 1996, around the same time that Penthouse Pet Julie Strain was splashed all over Heavy Metal Magazine. Knowing Kevin Eastman’s fascination with her, and that she modeled for both Kevin and Simon’s drawings, it’s not hard to see why Midnight looks just like her. In fact, Kevin and Strain had married in 1995. Still, you couldn’t get a better mix if you wanted to appeal to Turtles fans who were already fighting to control their hormones. April O’Neil in latex, maybe?

Julie Strain as Midnight in Bodycount (1996)

So, taken in the context of the target market, Bodycount hit the mark. But teenagers aren’t stupid, and I think we probably felt the flaws in the comic, even if we couldn’t articulate them then. The writing is difficult to digest, and the images can be hard to decipher. It’s hard for me to take my editor’s cap off, so let’s talk about spelling wuicklu quickly. The comics are full of errors, such as “calvary” instead of “cavalry”, “to” instead of “too”, and “Santuary” instead of “Sanctuary”, which is one of the most important locations in the story. It becomes hard to know if you’re missing a joke or reading too much into the bad copy.

Art-wise, Bisley’s London-punk style is great, but sometimes too simple, like the three-dimensional rectangles that we’re supposed to read as pistols. There are inconsistencies too, much like with the spelling, such as Johnny’s hand looking normal in some panels, or Midnight firing her pistol with her left and then her right hand in the next panel. It gets a bit too looney, too. What’s that weird monkey leprechaun about anyway?

Leprechaun Monkey in Bodycount (1996)

But okay, Bodycount is still fun and entertaining, like a bad accident set to rousing classical music. This is, after all, an indie comic, and that’s why I love it. Don’t expect polish. Don’t expect any real maturity (hey, when have the Turtles ever been mature?), and just enjoy the wild, wild ride.

3 out of 5 Chibi-thulhus.

3 Cheeky Cthulhus

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Waaay back in the day someone in our role-playing group (called Bob’s Rent-a-Cult btw) owned a copy of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness, a supplement for Heroes Unlimited. I don’t think we ever actually played it, but the idea of role-playing a ninja turtle has stuck with me ever since and that’s a gap I intend to fill.

 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness
The Book That Started It All

How? Well, If you haven’t already heard about Marvel Heroic Roleplay (MHR) then you’re already too late, since it’s become so hard to get the books after their short print run. Anyway, the fan base is still huge and people are playing. Besides, the standard Cortex System is still available, which MHR is based off. It’s a perfect system for some turtle powered action. Cowabunga!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by theCHAMBA
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
by theCHAMBA

Datafiles, the game’s character sheets, are easy to build from scratch, but here is some inspiration from RPG.net.

That just leaves the Events (adventure), and I think there are some great resources, namely the original and reboot comics as well as all the numerous TV series runs and all the movies. My favourite would have to be the 2003-2009 run, which was the second series and is closer to the comics.

If your interested in playing, or just want to know more about Marvel Heroic Roleplay, why not join the Google+ group and let’s talk turtles. If you’d like to see campaign notes and other articles about the sessions here, leave a comment below.

TURTLE POWER!!!

 
Superheroes - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com

Sneak Peek – Where Heroes Stand

I’m very proud to share this sneak peek of the book cover for Where Heroes Stand, the first adventure in the Kamen, Land of Masks Campaign.

Where Heroes Stand Preview
Copyright 2014, R. & J. Sloan.

All credit goes to my beautiful wife for putting this together so masterfully.

You can get the poster map of the campaign world over at RedBubble.com, or read more about Kamen, Land of Masks right here on the blog.

Till next time, Tell Thrilling Tales.

Inspired in Japan