Artist Paul McCaffrey takes on TMNT' 'Fugitoid'

Sci-Fi Art Now contributor and British comics comic creator Paul McCaffrey is the artist on the latest issue of IDW's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Microseries: Fugitoid.

Also available digitally as well as in comic shops, the story centres on Fugitoid, a Mirage Studios character co-created by the founding fathers of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird.

This comic Is a one-shot, released as the eighth issue of IDW's TMNT "Micro-Series" line written by Paul Allor and introduces Fugitoid to a new era of readers, the strong familial themes in his story and his personal connections to the TMNT. The adventure leads the new 'Fugitoid' to Earth, and stands to affect the Turtles’ future in an unexpected and crucial way.

The story serves to set up an upcoming TMNT ongoing story arc, and writer Paul Allor has nothing but praise for Paul McCaffrey's art.

"Paul does a really amazing job with action sequences," Allor told Comic Book Resources news. "He's able to make sure you know where everyone is, what's happening and what the stakes are for each character. He's a masterful storyteller in that regard.

"He's also fantastic at the character-acting part of the job," he added. "He's able to pick just the right body language, the right expression to tell you everything going on inside a character's mind. That's why one of my favorite moments was the scene... between Honeycutt and his wife, as they have an important conversation. It's a quiet, domestic scene, and Paul nailed the emotions behind it, the interaction of these two characters.

"The Fugitoid is an early creation of Mr. Eastman and Mr. Laird, pre-dating even the Turtles," he says of the character. "In the original continuity, he was a scientist named Professor Honeycutt who becomes trapped in a robot body and finds himself on the run from intergalactic factions. Eventually he hooks up with the Turtles and hijinks ensue!

"In the IDW continuity, Dr. Honeycutt is working for Krang before deciding to defect. The new IDW continuity is focused so strongly on family and moral questions of right and wrong, the proper use of violence and peace and how to do the right thing in such an imperfect world. Our new iteration of Dr. Honeycutt fits into these themes quite well."

"!We seem to have been getting generally positive reactions," says Paul of the book, which marks only his latest foray into US comics, having also worked on the Men of War mini-series for DC Comics.

Paul McCaffrey graduated from Newcastle Polytechnic (as was) with a BA in graphic design. Since then, he's mainly worked in the area of children's educational illustration, so he's done a lot of work you'll never see for books you've never heard of. Some of this can be seen on his web site or or his agent's web site.

Over the past few years, his comic strip work has appeared in UK indie titles such as Omnivistascope, Violent! and Zombies Vs Robots: Adventure. When he's not scribbling away, he makes music with The Phase 4). (Also atwww.last.fm/music/The+Phase+4).

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles digital comics are now available to fans outside of the US, including the UK, Australia, the Channel Islands (Jersey and Guernsey), Ireland and New Zealand.

The comics will be available in the TMNT Comics app, the IDW Comics app, Comics by comiXology apps for iOS and Android, or online at read.idwpublishing.com

- Paul McCaffrey's web site: www.coroflot.com/paul_mccaffrey

- Read a 2010 interview with the artist on the SciFi Art Now blog

- Read Paul Allor's interview about the Fugitoid comic on Comic Book Resources