Personal Staff Posts – Page 13

Jake Black Cancer Update

For those of you who don’t know. Our dear friend and Tales of the TMNT writer, Jake Black, is battling cancer. Well via his blog Jake gives us a very encouraging update!

Here is an update I sent out to friends and family…

Just have had a couple of pieces of good news with regard to my cancer treatment, and we wanted to get the word out.

Back in June I was hospitalized for a week due to a very bad reaction to one of the four chemo drugs. That drug caused some permanent scarring/damage to my lungs.

On Tuesday this week I had a PET CT scan–a test to see size/locations/metabolic rates of cancer cells. The radiologist reviewing the report said that everything is shrinking very well, and that the cancer cells are no longer metabolizing anything. In other words, they’re dead. The chemo has worked. I’m not officially in remission, yet, but we are getting close! 🙂

I have three more chemo sessions to go. We want to make sure we really kill the cancer cells. My final treatment session is scheduled for September 24.

There was initially talk of following up on the chemo with six weeks of daily radiation treatments, which would last until around Thanksgiving in November. But because of the damage to my lungs, my oncologist isn’t sure. He’s going to discuss with the radiation doctor, and make a determination. If the radiation doctor is confident that he blast the cells without hitting my lungs, we’ll proceed. If he can’t we’ll be done September 24.

In the meantime, the fine folks at Mirage–the Ninja Turtles Company–have released a t-shirt to help with our expenses. If nothing else you can look at the shirt here (I’m not schilling…it’s just part of the cancer update. PLEASE don’t feel like I’m asking/pressuring you to buy them. Really, I just think they’re cool): http://www.ninjaturtles.com/html/scratch-shirt.htm

Michelle and I are so grateful for every note, kind word, and other display of support and affection we’ve received over the last four or five months. We’re almost done–just two to four months left. But I have to tell you, we couldn’t have done it without you. I’m most excited because I’ll be *allowed* to travel to NYC and LA–my two favorite places and my good friends-(and getting back to focusing on my writing career)-toward the end of the year.

I really hope to see as many of you as I can, and we can celebrate the end of this process in just a couple of months!

With great love and appreciation,

Jake Black

We love you Jake. Keep up the good fight!

By the way, you can now pre-order the T-Shirt which benefits Jake’s cancer fund (Cancer is expensive, dude!) by checking out this post!

Turtle Soup: Designs From The Classic TMNT Years

One of the coolest things about being a huge collector of anything is that you get to meet people you would never normally meet. At San Diego Comic Con, Steve Lavigne was given the card of a sculptor that used to work with Scott Hensey over at Anaglyph (one of the studios that sculpted the vintage TMNT toy line for Playmates). Steve gave me the card saying that he thought this was someone I should get in touch with. And this is how I met David Arshawsky.

David is one hell of a sculptor, and has sculpted a number of my favorite pieces including Pizzaface, Wingnut, and Ray Fillet!

I was very enthusiastic about getting to pick his brain, since I actually own a number of his prototypes, like this unreleased version of Pizzaface!

Anyway, we got to chatting, and sometime in the near future I plan on taking a trip over to his studio to check out some of the pieces he has (which I will of course post about). But one of the cooler things he turned me on to is a little self published book he’s put out. “Turtle Soup – Designs From The Classic TMNT Years”.

This book is full of concept art of figures, vehicles, and roleplaying gear that was designed and sculpted by David. While there is a ton of stuff in there for toys that you have seen, there is also a ton of art in there for figures that you have NEVER seen, and I don’t believe you’ll ever see it anywhere else! In my humble opinion, this book is a MUST HAVE for any of the serious toy collectors out there. And for $8.00 you really can’t go wrong!

You can pick up a copy of David’s book via this link! (Disclaimer: David also does adult oriented art, and if you snoop around on the turtlemilk site, you’ll probably run into stuff that is not acceptable for viewers under the age of 18)

Collector Corner – Profiles in the Fandom!

Here is the latest profile. This time, from one of out very own Machines! Even though I have a small queue of more collectors to profile, I’m still looking for more fans to profile so please contact me (click my name in the “Contact Us” section) to see yourself profiled. Thanks!

-Terminator

————————————————————————

Isaac

is and kev

1) Please tell us a little about yourself.

WHOOO AM I????!!! ….. I have no idea….Ok I’ll try to make this brief. I was born Nov. 30th on the first snow of winter 1985. My parents were kinda hippy type people, we lived off and on in a converted school bus in my early years which still sits in a small grove on a friends property where it acts as a summer cottage.

Until around the age of grade 7 (what ever that is) I was ‘home schooled’…. YES… I am one of ‘those’ creepy home-schooled kids. Growing up I spent a lot of time working with and learning from my father who was a general contractor and a wonderful teacher of the practical aspects of the world around me. I developed an intense interest in movies and cameras very early in life, which turned into a post secondary education and career in the field. And Yes! the first TMNT movie was a massive player in that passion development. Along with the greats like Terminator 1 and Blade runner! As well as working in in film I work construction with my dad, work on and re-build old Toyota Land Cruisers, fix cars, play bass in a band, play drums for myself, manufacture large camera cranes and rigs, and so on.

Most of you know me now as the guy doing the Turtle Doc, some of you I have even met! This project is yet another one of my crazy projects that go WAY beyond where I imagined they would go, which is always cool! You can see some of the other stuff I do on my sites www.iproductionsonline.com and the movie I shot at www.lifeofcharlie.com …. Oh and of course www.turtledoc.com

Otherwise I am just a crazy, free thinking, loud mouthed, opinionated, happy go lucky, Canadian, living a modest little life in a small city outside Toronto with my girl friend Robyn. Come up and hang out in Canada anytime! if your not afraid of slightly socialist people hahaha!

2) How long have you been collecting TMNT and what prompted you to start?

Well I come from a family of crazy collectors so it comes as totally natural. My first TMNT toys were pre-five birthday and then I got a bunch more on that birthday and the rest Is history.

I would say I have only been seriously collecting since 2007. I have always been collecting movie toys of all types but it wasn’t until then that I decided to focus on one thing I could collect a lot of!!

3) What specifically do you collect (toys, comics, etc.) and how large is your collection?

Well I am a big time toy guy! I am also a completionist by nature so I like to have complete lines with all accessories and such. That said I am also realistic so at this point I am focusing on complete loose figures and dabbling in carded or boxed. My comic collection has grown substantially since the start of the Doc project, but not complete yet.

4) What is your favorite piece in your collection and why?

Hmmmm…. Good question. Probably some of my rare’rer er… comics and variants.

5) How do you store/display your collection at home?

HA This is a great question…. Well I live in a vary small apartment, but I am sort of a freak about nicely displayed and very well taken care of collections. (You will see the best of which in the world in the Doc… but it’s not mine). So I only have a small selected amount out on display at the moment. There is a larger variety of loose figures displayed on the upper walls of my storage closet, but otherwise everything is very carefully stored.

6) What are your top five most wanted TMNT collectibles?

I have a good chunk of very rare and nice pieces so otherwise it would have to be the completion of my toy collection, movie props or suits (which with my anal nature I fully intend and demand proper preservation and storage of these props, people don’t get it! Latex disintegrates in air and light… believe me I have seen full turtle suits in states that would make you cry, so if you have these PROTECT THEM! Don’t ‘love them’)…. Cough…. Ok That was a nice brackets rant.