This Makes Me Happy

This week, Johnny Likens, a YouTube creator I’ve been following, just released a CG video of Raphael (the Ninja Turtle) fighting a bunch of robotic Foot ninjas in a subway. He’s done this same treatment for Leonardo and Donatello as well. I’m assuming he plans on releasing one for Michelangelo at some point as well.

This channel was the inspiration for my next novel, which I plan on releasing for free on my website when it’s completed. It’s a faithful sequel to the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie from the 1990s. No Turtles movie made since ever came close to matching that first one. The turtle costumes by Jim Henson still stand up today. The movie’s tone was a perfect mix of gritty realism and humor, not bogged down with Saturday morning cartoon campiness. Once you get past the fact that the titular characters are mutated turtles who know martial arts, it stays grounded, steering clear of the parts of TMNT lore better fit for cartoons. As I hope to prove in my upcoming novel, I think you can gently ease some of those elements into subsequent stories while still remaining true to the original movie, but that story started out exactly where it needed to.

We will never get a full length movie (please, prove me wrong). Still, there are independent creators out there creating amazing content that, technically, is fan fiction. These videos are serious work by a professional artist who, apparently, loves the material like I do. That makes me happy.