Material is unprocessed but can be made available without further review. kws 2022-10-18
This collection is located on site.
This collection belonged to an award-winning horror writer who worked for Mirage Studios (the TMNT studio) in the early 1990s, writing the TMNT newspaper strip. There is original art for never-reprinted newspaper strips (1993) complete with thumbnails, comic book manuscripts with editorial notation, story idea notebooks, minicomics produced by Mirage Studios, and manuscript materials for a host of secondary TMNT materials, including The Official TMNT Treasury. Many of the secondary materials are autographed by TMNT creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird.
Dealer-provided listing of materials
The description below was provided by the dealer. No attempt has been made to match this listing to the materials in the collection, but the list is provided for the researcher's information.
You will need to make an appointment in advance to use this collection material in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room. You can schedule an appointment once you've submitted your request through your Special Collections Research Account.
Material is unprocessed but can be made available without further review. kws 2022-10-18
This collection is located on site.
Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. Permission to publish material from the collection must be requested from the Curator of Manuscripts/University Archivist, Rare Book and Manuscript Library (RBML). The RBML approves permission to publish that which it physically owns; the responsibility to secure copyright permission rests with the patron.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Collection; Box and Folder; Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.
Columbia University Libraries, Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Material reboxed, and finding aid updated to provided requestable box list. Collection remains unprocessed. Material was not rearranged, and dealer description was not matched to box contents.
Wiater's work with the TMNT came at a time when the characters were just beginning to ride the wave of popularity from the animated series (the original comic books, created by Eastman and Laird, were darker, more mature, and parodied a host of contemporaneous comics, including THE NEW MUTANTS, CEREBUS, and RONIN). The collection reflects the beginning of Mirage's capitalization on the characters' enormous popularity, while still trying to maintain some of the original grittiness, but also the beginnings of the TMNT industry that would build up around them. Neither Eastman nor Laird have an archived collection, so this collection represents the only glimpse into the workings behind a global phenomenon, as well as the other materials that the publishers were producing.
The subject headings listed below are found in this collection. Links below allow searches for other collections at Columbia University, through CLIO, the catalog for Columbia University Libraries, and through ArchiveGRID, a catalog that allows users to search the holdings of multiple research libraries and archives.
All links open new windows.