 Pete, my first question for you is, how are you reflecting on your time with the turtles, or at least on the turtles being a part of your life? Well, they've been a huge part of my life, and it's kind of wild that there's still such a big part of it, even though I'm no longer the owner of the property. And it's really wonderful to see the continued love that people have for them. I think probably the best thing is, or the coolest thing is, the multi-generational aspect of it, where the kids that got into the turtles when the comic books first came out, and now their kids, or even their kids' kids, are into the turtles. And that's humbling and just a wonderful feeling. Yeah, I was part of that generation. I had a Ninja Turtles backpack in Puerto Rico when I was five years old. You know, I had my first time at Disney, I had my Ninja Turtle outfit, and I had Ninja Turtle, a big cup, so the turtles were a big part of my life. I even named my hamsters after the turtles. I had named them all after the turtles, and we had an X-Rome, so I named that one Splinter. With the turtles, what was it like to believe in something until you guys started to see that it was working? The original idea just came out of fun. Back in 1983, when we created the characters and the story concept, Kevin and I were desperate to get into the world of comic books as professionals, and that inspired us, that desire. It fired us up to the point where we figured that we wouldn't wait for other people to do it for us, we would do it ourselves, and you know, followed the path of other people like Dave Sim, who did Sarabas, and Wendy and Richard Pini, who did Elf Quests, and we self-published, and it worked out really well, and it was truly a labor of love. You know, we just had so much fun doing it, you know, working together on coming up with the stories and doing the artwork, and you know, it was in 1984, no, I think it was 1985, we realized that with the first printing of issue number two, I was doing all the business work at the time, Kevin was still living in Maine, and I was in Connecticut, and I crunched the numbers for the first printing of issue number two, and I got so excited, I called Kevin up right away, and this was in the days when, you know, I was long distance phone call was very expensive, and I told him, Kevin, you're not going to believe this, we're going to each make $2,000 clear on this first printing of issue number two, and that was the start of it, the fact that we could do something that we absolutely love doing, and have total fun with it, and also make enough money to keep ourselves fed and housed. It was like a dream come true, and if it had just stayed like that, I think we would have been completely happy, but as you know, it went a lot further than that, and that was pretty amazing, but there's the comic book that was the source of it all, and I think the source of the greatest pride and enjoyment that we had in the whole process. It is pretty amazing to consider that the turtles have had such longevity, I mean it's 83, it's 35 years, that's over half my life span, and so far, and it's pretty incredible that they're still going strong, I'm sure you know, there's a new cartoon series, there's a new movie in the works, there's all kinds of products, unique figures, and statues, and all you know clothing, all the whole line yards, to think that it's still going, you know, based on what was originally a fun thing for us to do, to amuse ourselves and get ourselves into the comic book business, it's just pretty amazing to consider that. How do you feel about another live action turtles, like the original movie? I'm a huge fan of the first live action turtle movie. It was I think a real fortuitous combination of circumstances that Steve Barron was the director that they chose, and he had a very artistic eye and a very creative spirit, and he was also able to get the Henson group involved, Jim Henson and his studio, and they're you know well known for being top-notch animatronic designers and puppeteers, and that was just what the turtles needed to sell their reality, if you will, on screen, and they did a phenomenal job with that, and the first movie, I can watch that over and over, it's really a very successful work, probably the best live action adaptation of the turtles, and I've seen the most recent ones, the Michael Bay produced versions, they can't say too much good for them, or about them, they just don't have the spirit that the original one did, you can't love everything about the property, so it's always going to be something that is less satisfying than other things, but I love that first movie, it was seeing it on the screen for the first time was kind of surreal, to see these characters that Kevin and I had created years earlier, just for this comic book that we're self-publishing, brought to the screen in this incredible form, Jim Henson puppets and animatronic suits that they created, just amazing, and we both had a sense of deep gratitude that people were willing to take that kind of chance on our crazy little creations, of course just before that, the cartoon show became a very big success, so it wasn't like they were taking too great a risk, but still, it was a risk. Can you talk to me a little bit about the power of putting an idea on paper? One of the great things about being a cartoonist or an artist of any kind, illustrator or whatever, is that you start with, like I'm starting here, with a blank page, a blank surface, and you use your skill, whatever skill you have, to create something that never existed before, even though this drawing that I'm doing here is very similar to a lot of other drawings I've done in the past. It's still unique. It's still a unique piece of creative imagery, and it's a wonderful feeling. It's really what sustained our interest in doing the turtles for so long, working on the comics and so forth. You could definitely say it's an empowering feeling. What's your relationship like with Raphael? Well, he's not my favorite turtle. Donatello is my favorite turtle, but I know Raphael is Kevin Eastman's favorite turtle. I don't dislike him. I don't hold anything against him as a character. I know that sounds kind of weird, but I prefer Donatello because he's more of a thinker and he's more into the wonders and joys of technology. He is slow to anger, much more so than Raphael is. As you well know, Raphael kind of has a hero trigger. Do you think Raphael is your favorite? Yeah, my grandfather that I never really got to spend time with, his name was Raphael. So I always gravitated more towards Raphael, and I think in life as life unfolded, I think I'm a combination of Leo and Raph. I feel like I got Raph's temperament and energy because I think he has a lot of strong energy. I feel like every team needs somebody with him, a little attitude, but also his temperament comes from a place. But Leo, I would say, I'm similar to Leo in the sense that I know I have to put the betterment of the group first, of my family first. So I feel like I have a little bit of Leo in me. It's crazy when I reflect on it, I could probably relate to all of them. Kind of a combination of passion and discipline. That's actually one of the coolest things about the whole turtle experience is how much people, especially kids and young people, have gotten out of the teachings of the turtles and how they relate to different characters in a very intimate way, and find inspiration in those characters. That's been a very humbling experience. When you create something or co-create something that means so much to so many different people, it's a real eye-opening experience. And it's great to hear people's stories.