Daily Press from Newport News, Virginia • Page 17

nn ODAY Saturday, June 2, 1984 Page 17 een-age Ninj a Turtles' pokes fun at comics Hflere's looking at youth By ANDY DABILIS United Press International DOVER, N.H. "My name is Leonardo. We made a wrong turn somewhere. Now we're caught, our backs to the wall in this trash strewn alley. Barring the way out are 15 members of the Purple Dragons, the toughest street gang on the east side.

The only way they'll let us out of here is if we're DEAD!" But the Purple Dragons, kung fu flicks, samurai movies, the karate craze and all those comic books featuring adolescents exposed to strange rays turning them into superhero freaks are no match for the "TEEN-AGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES." Free lance illustrator Kevin Eastman has teamed with Peter Laird, 30, who has worked for newspapers such as the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Massachusetts, and magazines and "fanzines," for the parody they hope will sell. "We just wanted to do some kind of comic book and Kevin had this idea for a ninja character who was a turtle, and he drew a sketch and I thought it was really clever and cute," Laird said. The two have formed Mirage Studios and "Turtles," as they call it, is their first comic book. They have advertised the 40-page black-and-white story that follows the hilariously satiric adventures of four teen-age turtles who have been trained in the secret martial arts of the ninja, the shadow warriors of feudal Japan. But the characters are also mutants, altered, as they say, tice League of America had the Flash and J'onn J'onzz instead of Halo and Black Lightning, have today become self-parodies.

Even D.C. Comics, publishers of Superman, have given up plot for fake dazzle and pop graphics. Laird said they wanted to inject some self-effacing humor and retain high quality art and story line in comics, which have risen in price from a dime each to $1.50, which used to be more than enough to buy Playboy. They chose teens and martial arts because "lately there's been a kind of resurgence in the ninja, and the idea of turtles as ninjas appealed to our sense of bizarre humor. They are the last creatures you'd expect to be acrobatic and deadly," he said with a laugh.

"Ninja Turtles" is "more of a parody of what's happening in comics, there's a plethora of teen-age mutant superheroes. There's some really bad stuff out there," he said. The first run of 3,000 copies is sizeable for an entrepreneurial start in a tricky business, and their word-of-mouth-type distribution is riskier. Laird said they are confident the demand for quality comic books and the opening of more than 2,000 comic book stores will make the work financially successful enough for a sequel. How about: "REVENGE OF THE TEEN-AGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES?" Peninsula comic book vendors the Daily Press contacted have yet to hear of the "Teen-age Mutant Ninga Turtle" comics.

"in form and intelligence by a mysterious radioactive ooze," and trained by a super-rat who learned karate and the way of the sword from a Japanese master. Their mission: stalk the assassin of their master's master through streets filled with Purple Dragons and deadly enemies. How can you not like characters who are teen-age mutant ninja turtles with names like Leonardo, Michaelangelo, Raphael and Donatello, who spout dialogue such as, "we are turtles, not dogs without honor." Laird and Eastman have taken to direct marketing through the mails and national comic book advertisers after financing the comic with tax refund money and cash from an uncle who was easily persuaded. Laird says the partners chose their subject because both were comic book fans dismayed by the trend away from the more intellectual plots of the better "Superman" stories, and because they had also studied martial arts. Comic books for the serious student weaned on Superman, when he was fighting Brainiac and Lex Luthor, and for those who remember when The Jus UPI photo The "Mutant Ninja Turtles" comic book follows the adventures of four teen-age turtles.

Movies are catching dancin' fever and rakin' in big bucks By BOB McKELVEY Knight-Rldder Newspapers having a rock song in it, or even if you can get a rock artist in it, you're pre-selling the movie (through music video)." otta sing! Gotta dance! Gotta hustle those rock-pop movie bucks! Gi Also waiting in the wings are the inevitable "Flashdance II" and the long-delayed "A Chorus Line." And an aging Gene Kelly is Soft-shoeing back onto the scene. He's assembling old clips for something called "That's Dancing." Even God has caught the fever. In "Oh God III," a concert scene was turned into epic proportions to feature music video. Asv one Warners executive commented happily: "Studios are evaluating the viability of music in every project." for the prestige. Overnight, the chase has been reversed; now it's the movie industry chasing music artists and record companies.

The possibility of oversatu-rating the market worries some movie executives. Weaver said that Paramount, despite its phenomenal success with "Flashdance" and "Footloose," is proceeding cautiously. "Obviously, we're open to opportunities for a movie with music in it," he said, "but it'll have to be a film that can stand on its own and not just be 'Son of among others. There are as many reasons for the dance-movie phenomenon as there are applicants for jobs in "A Chorus Line," which brought 1,500 hopefuls out in the rain to try for one of the 21 roles in the movie. A major contributor to the craze is the phenomenal success of cable television's MTV, which has turned on a generation of teen-agers to musical pyrotechnics via video.

Since these kids buy a formidable number of theater tickets, movie industry reasoning goes, why not capitalize on their hunger for flash and trash, glitz and blitz? "Music video has become a films," said Gordon Weaver, president of marketing for Para-mount's motion-picture division. "It's a way to reach the doers and the shakers who buy albums and go to movies. They're a terrific audience to get in (the theater) for that first weekend, because they give you that most wonderful thing of all good word-of -mouth." Danny Goldberg, a record executive and consultant for 20th Century Fox on sound track deals, agreed: "Suddenly, because of music video being in the homes, there's a new way of reaching kids, who will go see movies the first weekend they're out. If you have a movie that lends itself to Until recently, sound tracks were mostly a sideline for the movie moguls. No more.

The "Footloose" music currently is at the top of the Billboard charts. Five sound tracks ranked among the 50 top-selling albums of 1983: "Flashdance," "Staying Alive," "The Big Chill," "Yentl" and "Return of the Jedi." Observed Goldberg: "It used to be that artists would chase the sound-track opportunities Over the past 12 months or so, Hollywood has caught post-Saturday Night Fever. There's enough of it going around now to turn unknowns into instant stars or semi-stars. Jennifer Beals' in "Flashdance," Kevin Bacon in "Footloose," Marine Jahan in the coming "Streets of Fire." From Hollywood to New York, sound stages are echoing to the happy sounds of thumping feet. Show business has discovered that money not only talks, it dance's, too.

TVIovie producers are hoping they'll be waltzing all the way to the bank when the returns come in from these spring and summer entries: "Streets of Fire," (formerly. ''Break-dance'), "Body "Shootout," "Hard to Hold," "This Is Spinal Tap," "Beat" Street," "Purple Rain" and "The Cotton Club." i wonderful way to advertise our a SiQ US YOUKTOWN BRASSGIFTS 2286 Rt. 17 (3 mi. South of Yorktown) 898-7716 eOoen Doily Filmgoers are seeing the first ripples of what soon will become a flood tide of rock-dance movies. "Footloose" has already made waves and "Hard to Hold" features rocker Rick Springfield as star.

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