On day two of NYCC, I sat down with Dan Watters and Michele Bandini, the writer and artist of TMNT: Shredder, as well as Amancay Nahuelpan, the artist on TMNT: Casey Jones.
AIPT: You’ve each taken a single, iconic teenage mutant ninja turtle figure and given them their own spotlight. What appealed to you most about doing a series centered on the character, and what did you hope readers would take away?
Dan Watters: I love writing villains. The devil has the best tunes, villains have the best stories. So, Shredder would be my dream Turtles book. People ask, “What would be your dream project?” I’m already doing it. I think there’s a lot of untapped potential, and I’m very interested in how he built up the Foot Clan and how he established their wealth in this world, which has magic, mad science, and dimensional portals. That’s all the stuff that he gets to manipulate and navigate to do super-crime. And I don’t think there’s really been too many stories about that.
Michele Bandini: For me, I remember that I fell in love immediately with the script of issue one. I remember that I sent an email saying as much. I had to say this to Dan, because I loved the script and I loved his approach to the character. As [Dan] said in a previous interview, we are all from the same generation. I grew up with the cartoon from the 90s, and yes, I’m for villains too. I love villains. Even if Mikey is my favorite character from the turtles, I also love Shredder because he’s such a cool guy, so cool as a villain. And then we just got immediately on the same wavelength. I was more than happy to help Dan create this series and try to put these ideas on paper. It’s been fantastic, and it’s still fantastic. I’m really happy.
Amancay Nahuelpan: For Casey Jones, the answer is pretty similar. I was a fan of the character from the early TV shows and the movie, and I’ve always been a fan of more grounded characters. Marvel or DC, whichever character is the most grounded one, it’s the one I like more. I felt that it connects better with me, but I also like that Casey Jones is obviously not a perfect character, he has flaws and good and bad and all that, so that makes it an even more interesting character. I think that’s something that we explore through the issues, with his relation with the turtles, his relation with April, and his relation with his environment, Mutant Town and all that. For good or for worse, he’s not perfect, but he basically is good.
AIPT: Shredder has always been this big bad character. How did you approach making him maybe more sympathetic or understandable for your series?
DW: I don’t think a character has to be nice or likable to be interesting, or for us to want to follow their journey. So sympathetic isn’t quite the word I’d use, but we definitely are going to learn over the first arc why his attitude has shifted, why he’s so pissed off at the world and at magic, and at mad science. And I think he probably also has a point, it’s just a combination of those.
MB: He’s a man of few words. I’m loving that sometimes it takes just a bad look to say everything.
DW: But you do have to throw in a good monologue every now and then.
AIPT: Casey can be a raw and kinetic character. How did you decide the visual language for the book to convey that?
AN: Starting from his look, similar to what we said before, we wanted a grittier look for the whole book and for, obviously, Casey Jones. From the design point of view, we started with the basic, original Casey Jones kind of look, but then adding something that was giving more texture to what he was wearing, the badges and stuff like that, and then the book itself. We definitely wanted to have it filled with action and all that. But we also wanted it to look grounded and gritty. I took a lot of reference from the 70s movies in New York to make the city also a character and make it look like it’s part of the whole environment. A lot of the rooftops, graffiti. When they’re in Mutant Town, we change the tones of the colors, so we definitely wanted to give different vibes in terms of where the characters would be set up through the story. And with Casey, sometimes it’s tough to transmit the character’s emotions through a mask where you don’t see it, but with the hands and all that stuff, you can transmit stuff. There are some parts where he doesn’t wear the mask, so we can actually see his face. And through that, we try to transmit what he’s feeling and going through.
AIPT: For the action scenes, what’s your process for choreographing the fights on the page?
MB: I just wanted to have someone who is gonna strike with just one strike, but with a flow as well. So I imagine a river of violence. We can describe it that way. It’s gonna move, and when it’s gonna move, it’s gonna be too late. So I wanted to really show how little it can be, and I also tried to keep it as grounded as possible, without big jumps. So really short moves, but really effective as well.
AIPT: Both books exist in the broader TMNT universe. Did you talk to one another about the books or with editors about keeping consistencies?
DW: Alex [Paknadel], who writes Casey Jones, is one of my closest collaborators in comics anyway. So even if only one of us had been doing one of these works, we probably would have talked it out a lot, because we tend to bounce ideas off each other and break a story together and sort of throw each other influences and things all the time. So yeah, there was definitely a fair amount. And you’ll see the books are on different scales, but you’ll definitely see some hints towards each other.
AIPT: Without spoiling too much, what can readers expect from this arc of Shredder?
DW: Violence, globe-trotting violence, going around the world, seeing beautiful places, meeting beautiful people, and killing them. It’s very much the return of Shredder, and he’s come back with a bang, and by the end of it, everyone’s gonna know he’s back.
MB: Yeah, definitely, he’s not trying to hide anything, he’s out there. So he’s not scared of what is coming next.
DW: He has a new agenda and a new chip on his shoulder, and that’s what we’ll unravel over the first arc.
AIPT: And for Casey Jones?
AN: Hockey sticks, baseball bats. We’re gonna try to explore the deep relations that Casey has with the environment of Mutant Town and the turtles. As I said at the beginning, Casey is a broken person, but we’ll see him healing himself. He can take on as many bullets as he wants, but his head is the one that has to be fixed. So, through the issues, we will see how all this ends up at a point where hopefully, fans will be happy.
AIPT: Is there one panel or moment in the issue that you’re most proud of, something you think will stick with the readers?
DW: I really like the opening scene, which is very much Shredder’s no frills return, and beating the snot out of the people that have taken over his house.
MB: For me, it’s difficult, because I remember the first time that I read the script and probably both of these scenes are my favorite: the one where he just tears apart the technological armor and says, “I just need blades. I don’t care about anything else.” And the other one where Shredder came up the stairs saying “You should have taken care of this Katana, because it’s gonna be more painful.” So, yeah, those are just so badass, and that’s all because of Dan. I fell in love immediately with the script. I said, “Oh my God, I can’t wait to draw this.” It’s been a long time since I felt that way.
AN: For me there’s two scenes, definitely. They take place in the same park, which is when we just see full body Case Jones. There’s splash page where he was pointing to the camera. And then a couple of pages later there’s the whole turtle team jumping in. That for me, was like, “I’m having such a blast here”, because when I was a kid, I would draw the full gang, and then getting to draw it now, professionally for one of the titles? I had a blast working on those scenes.
AIPT: Who’s your favorite turtle?
AN: Raphael.
MB: Mikey.
DW: I’m with Shredder, turn them all into soup.
AIPT: My favorite has always been Raphael, but I grew up with three older brothers, so when you take the four of us and our personalities, I’m the Donatello of the group.
MB: You know, when I was a really young kid, Raphael was my favorite too. But growing up, I discovered myself more similar to Mikey, and the kind of person who is gonna try to make you laugh, even if there’s a sad situation, try to light up a little bit. So yeah, I changed more towards Mikey when I was around ten or twelve.
DW: Probably for the best, you don’t want to be a Raphael type.
Issue Shredder #2 is out on October 15th, and Casey Jones #2 drops on November 19th.
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