Peter Laird is an American comics artist and writer from North Adams, Massachusetts, who co-created the hit series "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" with Kevin Eastman in the early 1980s.
Very little is known about Laird's family background and early life, unlike Eastman, he has rarely spoken about his background in interviews. Born in 1954, Laird was in his early 30s when he became a professional comics creator.
In the early 1980s, Laird worked as an illustrator for a newspaper in Dover, New Hampshire, earning $10 per new illustration. To supplement his income, he created illustrations for fanzines.
In 1983 or 1984, Laird met aspiring comics artist Kevin Eastman, who was searching for a publisher for his work. They decided to collaborate on creating their next works.
In 1984, Eastman and Laird had a brainstorming session to find ideas for their own comic book series. They combined elements from four popular comics series of the early 1980s, including Marvel Comics' "Daredevil" and "New Mutants", Dave Sim's "Cerebus the Aardvark", and Frank Miller's "Ronin". They founded the publishing company Mirage Studios to self-publish the first issue of TMNT.
The first issue of TMNT was published in May 1984 and was a black-and-white publication, only 40 pages long. The duo advertised their product by sending a press kit to 180 television and radio stations, resulting in much publicity.
The initial print run for the first issue was 3,275 copies, and they were quickly sold out. Due to high demand, three additional printings were published in the summer of 1984 and September 1985. Eastman and Laird earned a profit of $2,000 each and decided to quit their day jobs to become full-time comic book creators.
Eastman and Laird made deals with other companies, granting them the right to create TMNT tie-ins and merchandise. Within a few years, there was a high demand for more TMNT stories and material. Laird has stated that he did not expect the TMNT's rapid success and the pressures involved in trying to run both a company and a media franchise.
One solution for Laird's problems was to hire more creative staff to help with the workload. The company gained its first real offices in Florence, Massachusetts, and the Mirage creative team produced most of their work in-house.
By 1990, Eastman had grown tired of working exclusively on TMNT and wanted to expand to new projects. Laird refused to help him or finance these projects, and Eastman founded his own company, Tundra Publishing.
In 1992, Laird founded the nonprofit corporation Xeric Foundation, headquartered in Northampton, Massachusetts, to grant funds to comic book creators who want to self-publish new projects.
In 2000, Laird partially bought out Eastman's ownership rights on Mirage and the TMNT franchise. According to the terms of the deal, Eastman was left with a small continuing income participation. In 2008, Laird purchased the remaining rights from Eastman and briefly became the sole owner of the TMNT franchise.
In 2009, Laird sold the rights to the TMNT franchise to media corporation Viacom. Mirage became a subsidiary of Viacom, and the rights were mainly handled by Viacom's subsidiary Nickelodeon.
By 2021, Laird was 67 years old and infrequently writes or draws new comics projects, and is otherwise semi-retired.
