For the longest time, I had no idea that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were in comic books. The second I found out, It started to interest me. After I looked into it, I got lost because I have no idea where to start reading TMNT. Can anyone give me an idea on where to start? & Are any of these TMNT Comics in trade/hardcover form?

@saoakden said:

For the longest time, I had no idea that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were in comic books. The second I found out, It started to interest me. After I looked into it, I got lost because I have no idea where to start reading TMNT. Can anyone give me an idea on where to start? & Are any of these TMNT Comics in trade/hardcover form?

For ease sake I would recommend getting the new TMNT series by IDW, fresh and very good so far. After that you could try getting your hands on the original, the mirage series which is currently being reprinted by IDW (because they are awesome like that)

@Crom-Cruach: IDW pratically owns TMNT huh?

@saoakden said:

@Crom-Cruach: IDW pratically owns TMNT huh?

Not practically, Mirage has been dead for years and the creators Eastman and Laird both gave exclusive rights to IDW to publish new material. Eastman is lead writer on the series. So in essence, the true TMNT material transfered to IDW

@Crom-Cruach: Oooooohhhh I get it now. That is interesting to know. I just learned something new about TMNT publication history.

@saoakden said:

@Crom-Cruach: Oooooohhhh I get it now. That is interesting to know. I just learned something new about TMNT publication history.

The TMNT rights were also at some points passed on to Image to continue their storyline for the original mirage run. However, it is now considered not cannon and repudiated. Image lost the rights too.

So IDW's TMNT is canon and everything else is non-canon?

@saoakden said:

So IDW's TMNT is canon and everything else is non-canon?

No they are two different runs/storylines/universe. The current new run is a completely new take with no relation to the original (except in spirit) but IDW is republishing the previous material for fans. As it stands considering the Mirage run books 1, 2 and 4 and considered canon of that run (while book 3, the Image one is repudiated)

@Crom-Cruach: That is very good to know. I'm going to pick up the new series as soon as I can.

@saoakden: I'm enjoying it so far.

@Crom-Cruach: Looks like from the reviews the series is doing well.

Yeah, the original series started off well; got a bit crappy here and there; got good again but by then it was just Laird and it seems he's just lost interest.

Having read the revamped IDW version, I'd recommend just starting from there. It's looking much better.

There are some great one shots you should look for though from the original mirage series. My personal favourite is Sky Highway.

stay away from the Image volume...it was HORRIBLE!!