IDW acquires 'Ninja Turtles' licence

IDW Publishing has acquired the licence to publish new material featuring the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

The announcement was made at this weekend's WonderCon in San Francisco, where the publishers confirmed that they will be launching a new comic book series later this year, as well as releasing a number of classic collections from the franchise creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird.

"The Turtles are a wide-world franchise, incredibly popular, a good, solid, fun comic book series," IDW editor Scott Dunbier explained to CBR. "It was kind of a no-brainer to go after it."

Nickelodeon purchased the rights to the entire Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise last year, leading previous owners Mirage Studios to cease publication of their Tales of TMNT series.

The editor claimed that the new material will have a much lighter tone than some of the previous comic book incarnations, potentially referring to Image Comics' '90s run, which saw many of the main characters transformed or mutilated in various ways.

"I wouldn't say 'all-ages' necessarily," Dunbier clarified. "we'll definitely skew a little closer to teenagers."

Last year it was reported that Young Guns screenwriter John Fusco had been hired to pen the script for a new live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film to be released in 2012.