Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-16581186-20151227004739/@comment-995426-20160112031303

Well, since Viacom (Nickelodeon's parent company) now owns all the rights to TMNT, they have no more obligations to Eastman or Laird whatsoever. Eastman is still involved&mdash;as a main writer for the IDW comic series and as the voice of Ice Cream Kitty&mdash;but he's strictly an employee now. He answers to Nick, but Nick doesn't answer to him, and Nick as the property owner has occasionally overruled some of Eastman's writing decisions for IDW. Laird's sale of TMNT to Viacom allowed Laird to continue to publish up to 18 new Mirage TMNT comic books a year, but he's since opted instead to wind down the business and gradually shut down Mirage. Laird and Nick are much like George Lucas and Disney are now&mdash;they acknowledge each other through "created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird" and "copyright Viacom" credits, but they don't have an actual working relationship.