Today's comic is not up because the author forgot plain and simple that it was Sunday today. But don't worry, I'll try to get it up as soon as possible this week.

Ahem if they don't get me first  O_O

Now excuse me *continues running*

I just realized that today is the day when I first published my very first TMNT fan fic, Encounters of the offworldly kind on the internet. Back then I only had my furnation.com account to post my stories and naturally posted it there.

Back then it was called Otherworldly Meetings and came in two parts, Encounter of the wolfish kind and encounter of the turtle kind and was essentially it's own series that even was originally supposed to tie in with Vicious encounter. Things haaaaaave definetly changed since then.

And the strangest thing the whole deal sprang out of one vivid image I had of Raphael kneeling down and in his arms he was comforting a young rymska boy. That scene made it into the story near the end of the first part after Raphael brings Braka's murdered father back to the lair.

But at the time that was the really only thing I had when first writing the story, why Raph had an alien child from another dimension in his arms. So the basically the whole thing was just to answer my question, where did that kid come from? Unfortunately Raph suffered a bit in character in the story, I had major trouble writing him and thus many of my ideas I had and lot of bonding moments I had in mind for him and Braka got dropped out. I managed to bring some of them back when I a year later rewrote the fic and changed it into Encounters of the offworldly kind.

But other than poor Raph, the story was otherwise terribly easy for me to write, mostly because I decided to use villains I was very familiar with, especially in the first part. In the second I decided to dig up an old species I had that was originally inspired from watching the old turtle cartoons, the Cabbats. That was probably the most tricky part of the story so in the original I had them essentially a "what if" if the turtles actually had a whole group of kinsmen. I scrapped that when I did the remake, making the Cabbats more alien and essentialy turtle like but not exactly turtles.

But later as I was processing with my Assassin series, I realized I still needed a story that pitted the assassin against Movie-Leonardo, I already had his two cartoon counterparts, his live-action TV counterpart, and had hinted at his Mirage comic counterpart. But I still didn't have Movie Leo.

I always wanted to remake Otherworldly Meetings and since that was set in the Movie world it was a perfect oppertunity. It also added a bit more layers to the story that I really felt needed, plus I could refine Raphael far more as he was finally becoming slightly  easier for me to write.

One thing that always bothered me in the original was Mike being tortured by Akre's interrogator. Now I make no secret of it that Akre is a villain, but he isn't a sadistic one, he doesn't enjoy causing pain on others nor does he thrill at seeing someone suffer. In fact he generally wants to avoid all that, mostly by just demonstating or hinting of what he is capable of doing if it comes to that. Plus in his eyes Mikey would be young enough to be considered a kid, even if he was supposed to be 18. So I was more than happy to remove the entire torture scene when I did the remake, instead having Akre's brother Dqrre stop everything before it begins, realizing that the turtle was very young.

Another thing that got changed was the location of the lair. In the original I had for no good reason relocated the turtles, it really served no purpose and by the time of the second part I relocated them back to the subway lair we see in the second and third movie. So when I did the remake, I had them back in the subway since it had originally made no sense to move them. Even my meak excuse of some construction work in the original sounded just so very lame.

Of course I also had to somehow make this a "assassin leo vs movie leo" but decided not to have the assassin ever really appear. Instead just give the readers several teasers that something happened, at times it seems like Leo is about to open up, but then clams shut all over again. It isn't until the last chapter it's finally spilled what happened and how the assassin met this particular Leonardo. This gave Leo a bit more of a role in the story than he originally had. Making him really interested in Braka's case, thinking that perhaps the assassin is involved, and then wondering if the Cabbats are the assassin's people. Learning both times that he was wrong naturally.

I can't say I'm unhappy with how the remake came out in the end. I think it's a stronger story than the original was, with more layers and most of the characters actually having some involved roles instead of just sitting there. So four years later and roughly three years after the remaking process, this story is one of my favorites I wrote. And naturally it did get a sequel called Double Encounter

I still have the original story, I tend not to throw away my stories, unless I'm really embarassaed about them or really think they are just too much crap to keep. So if anyone feels brave enough to read the original version and compare it to the rewrite, just contact me either here, via pm on stealthy stories or e-mail me at askre5(at)yahoo.no (replace (at) with @ )

Well the comic is back again, double update as promised ending the current storyline.

31. Riding the werewolfmobile.

32. More mysterious villains.

I have also added titles and commentary to comic 29 and 30.

Probably most of you know by now, that Nickolodeon has bought the TMNT from Mirage studios. So after digesting the news for a day now I've decided to put out what my thoughts really are on this matter.

At the moment though I'm very reserved about the whole thing. I don't know Nick well enough since when I first got introduced to the fact that there were whole channels just for cartoons, I was half finished from what US people would call High School. Well I did have a faint knowledge of Cartoon Network before, but that was about it. Heck I didn't even know there existed a Disney Channel until I moved to Norway six years ago.

So whether this will produce good or bad material I will not say, I'll wait and see what they will bring forth before forming an opinion. I prefer to not count my chickens before they hatch after all ;-)

I admit this was quite a surprising move by Peter Laird, especially considering the timing. But even, so as I thought about it, I felt less and less surprised that it had happened, and more surprised this hadn't happened sooner.

I will thought not say that I feel cheated by Laird for this move. I have come to understand that very little is constant in the entertainment industry, especially if you are not already part of the big companies and even they aren't necessarly safe for long. Heck it's not that long ago that Disney completely bought Marvel comics, who previously had been wholly independent, unlike DC who was already under Warner Brothers.

And change can be good, sometimes its even necessary to breathe new life into old things. So who knows, things might actually be looking up for our half-shelled heroes.