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Нинзя-черепашки и русский мишка
15 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
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March 22, 2018
The very new definition of the word "bottom". Long story short - it's yet another weird Russian stuff from 90s. Most likely unauthorized, because, as you probably know, after USSR ceased to exist, Russia was a weird place where it was possible to get an access to illegal copies of the American media, but at the same time there was no copyright law whatsoever. Make an illegal copy of anything American and sell it. No rules. The only thing to worry was mafia. Thanks to that, a lot of unauthorized stuff appeared. Like there were unauthorized novelizations of popular American movies, TV shows and video games. From RoboCop to The X-Files and X-COM. And, of course, there were comics. Like this one.
*Sigh* What am I saying? There's nothing like this one. Literally nothing. I can't even imagine anything more pathetic than this. The main idea was to turn turtles into something more local. As you may know, Ninja Turtles franchise was always very US-oriented. With a lot of stuff that was a part of daily life in the US. But, obviously, it wasn't like that in the "reborn" Russia. So, they decided to make turtles to live on the roof and fight with cockroaches. Which, together with bad roads and fools were always a big problem in Russia. Turtles also eat typical Russian food now. Like fried eggs and sausages. Because why not? Even when I'm writing this review, one small Papa John's pizza costs like 1/10 of the minimum wage in modern Russia. So... why not to make turtles to eat something that mamas and papas can actually get for their kids on daily basis? Like fried eggs... and... sausages... *sigh*
But those are details. The biggest problem here is, of course, the story. Even though artwork isn't that bad (early issues of the original Eastman and Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series weren't the best in this matter either), but writing here... is something different. Very... very different. And I'm not talking about the fact that author wasn't even able to properly write in Russian and every page has a lot of laughable errors (it's like the whole thing was written by an eight years old kid and even the title has a mistake in it). It's the writing itself that's awful. The "story". Situations, development... all that is just unbearable. Got it? Unbearable. Because yep, the Russian bear, which was always like a symbol of the country, is the biggest problem.
Wannabe patriotism of this work is really shocking. Especially the fact that it's lame as... I don't know what. Think about it. Authors of this comic didn't make anything. They stole characters from the US authors. But they did add a Russian bear who's, of course, much stronger than all turtles. He's introduced as the strongest, the coolest and the most advanced in military technologies (futuristic aircraft and balalaika that transforms into machine gun are included, no jokes). So, the whole idea here is that Russians are strongest, Russians are the best and they can top the Americans anytime. You know how it works in Russian propaganda. Only to show something like that to their kids they were in need to steal the ideas from the US. No surprise here and you may kind of expect something like that from 2000+ Russia when Mr. Putin took the power and started to cultivate such "patriotic" ideas, but... for 1994 it's kinda weird thing to see. You see, when USSR fell, majority of people hated its guts. Nobody wanted pro-Russia content. Just because they had more than enough in the USSR. Everybody wanted real fictional heroes. Like those from the US. Nobody wanted Murzilka (a character from magazine of the same name and also a hero of one of the very few comic strips in the USSR). Everybody wanted Superman and Batman. So, this... this is weird no matter how you look at it. It's like a death groan from some weird and uneducated person from the dead country (USSR) who wanted to show his kids that the ruined place they currently live in is still cool. By showing them that the foreign characters they really like aren't really that cool in front of Russian military power. Should I tell you just how pathetic it is?
The most interesting thing about this "work" is the fact that it works both as comic and coloring book (yeah, suck that, Doctor Who!). But honestly, this comic... is a huge culture shock even for those, who used to live in Russia back in the days. Pathetic writing, tons of grammatical errors on every page (it'll probably get my Russian language teacher a heart attack) and, of course, as a culmination of the show - pathetic Russian wannabe patriotism. Ladies and gentlemen, here comes post-USSR Russia in all of its "glory". "We can't make anything by ourselves, but hey! We can steal stuff and feel proud of it!" That's what this "work" is all about. And the worst thing is - nobody got a lawsuit for this, while this work is a crime in every way possible. And not only because of the turtles. Writing something like this is a crime all by itself. It's ugly, it's stupid, it's racist and it teaches kids two thing. First - military power is everything. Second - you don't need to go to school as long as you have military power. Because makers of this comic certainly didn't.
Before this comic I always thought that burning books is bad. Now... I honestly don't know anymore.
*Sigh* What am I saying? There's nothing like this one. Literally nothing. I can't even imagine anything more pathetic than this. The main idea was to turn turtles into something more local. As you may know, Ninja Turtles franchise was always very US-oriented. With a lot of stuff that was a part of daily life in the US. But, obviously, it wasn't like that in the "reborn" Russia. So, they decided to make turtles to live on the roof and fight with cockroaches. Which, together with bad roads and fools were always a big problem in Russia. Turtles also eat typical Russian food now. Like fried eggs and sausages. Because why not? Even when I'm writing this review, one small Papa John's pizza costs like 1/10 of the minimum wage in modern Russia. So... why not to make turtles to eat something that mamas and papas can actually get for their kids on daily basis? Like fried eggs... and... sausages... *sigh*
But those are details. The biggest problem here is, of course, the story. Even though artwork isn't that bad (early issues of the original Eastman and Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series weren't the best in this matter either), but writing here... is something different. Very... very different. And I'm not talking about the fact that author wasn't even able to properly write in Russian and every page has a lot of laughable errors (it's like the whole thing was written by an eight years old kid and even the title has a mistake in it). It's the writing itself that's awful. The "story". Situations, development... all that is just unbearable. Got it? Unbearable. Because yep, the Russian bear, which was always like a symbol of the country, is the biggest problem.
Wannabe patriotism of this work is really shocking. Especially the fact that it's lame as... I don't know what. Think about it. Authors of this comic didn't make anything. They stole characters from the US authors. But they did add a Russian bear who's, of course, much stronger than all turtles. He's introduced as the strongest, the coolest and the most advanced in military technologies (futuristic aircraft and balalaika that transforms into machine gun are included, no jokes). So, the whole idea here is that Russians are strongest, Russians are the best and they can top the Americans anytime. You know how it works in Russian propaganda. Only to show something like that to their kids they were in need to steal the ideas from the US. No surprise here and you may kind of expect something like that from 2000+ Russia when Mr. Putin took the power and started to cultivate such "patriotic" ideas, but... for 1994 it's kinda weird thing to see. You see, when USSR fell, majority of people hated its guts. Nobody wanted pro-Russia content. Just because they had more than enough in the USSR. Everybody wanted real fictional heroes. Like those from the US. Nobody wanted Murzilka (a character from magazine of the same name and also a hero of one of the very few comic strips in the USSR). Everybody wanted Superman and Batman. So, this... this is weird no matter how you look at it. It's like a death groan from some weird and uneducated person from the dead country (USSR) who wanted to show his kids that the ruined place they currently live in is still cool. By showing them that the foreign characters they really like aren't really that cool in front of Russian military power. Should I tell you just how pathetic it is?
The most interesting thing about this "work" is the fact that it works both as comic and coloring book (yeah, suck that, Doctor Who!). But honestly, this comic... is a huge culture shock even for those, who used to live in Russia back in the days. Pathetic writing, tons of grammatical errors on every page (it'll probably get my Russian language teacher a heart attack) and, of course, as a culmination of the show - pathetic Russian wannabe patriotism. Ladies and gentlemen, here comes post-USSR Russia in all of its "glory". "We can't make anything by ourselves, but hey! We can steal stuff and feel proud of it!" That's what this "work" is all about. And the worst thing is - nobody got a lawsuit for this, while this work is a crime in every way possible. And not only because of the turtles. Writing something like this is a crime all by itself. It's ugly, it's stupid, it's racist and it teaches kids two thing. First - military power is everything. Second - you don't need to go to school as long as you have military power. Because makers of this comic certainly didn't.
Before this comic I always thought that burning books is bad. Now... I honestly don't know anymore.
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