Jim Lawson updated
his blog today with a new piece of art featuring all four Turtles looking down on New York from one of its many rooftops. This fantastic piece was done for a TMNT 25th anniversary project that 4Kids is working on. Jim and all of the Mirage artists were asked to contribute pieces of art; however, Mirage got these pieces of art as freebies and
did not pay the artists for the time and talent put into them.Needless to say, this is unacceptable. Unfortunately, this attitude is becoming more and more typical of Mirage, namely CEO Gary Richardson who also attempted to cancel all of the employees' life and disability insurance last week to save the company all of $9,500 a year. The only reason this didn't happen is apparently due to a technicality (not a sudden change of heart from Mr. Richardson).
With all of the writing that has been put on the wall concerning Richardson, the only question that can be asked is:
Why does Peter Laird apparently sit back and do nothing while Mirage crashes and burns and his employees, who have given the last 20+ years of their lives to the company, as well as their entire professional careers, struggle to make ends meet while he and Gary Richardson are living free and easy?You can see the new piece by Lawson in full
here.
Addendum: It has been clarified to me that 4Kids, not Mirage, requested these pieces of art and as such, it was 4Kids, not Mirage, who did not pay for them. It still seems to me that Mirage could have found it in their hearts to pay the artists for the pieces anyways, and asking for art that you don't intend to pay for, no matter who the asking party is, is in poor taste no matter what the situation.