I'm a well read grad student who's bluntly honest about all things, although I try to be most honest about myself.
The concept behind these collections is to gather all the work by one legend, one storyteller who had a major impact on the series, or who simply wrote beautiful stories or drew gorgeous illustrations.
And the illustrations were lovely, but unfortunately, I didn't connect with the stories. Looking back, they're multifaceted, and it's not a one-hit wonder type of story repeating on and on again. And it wasn't that the stories were poorly told: they weren't. They were, in fact, gorgeous stories.
I just didn't connect with them. This is one of those times where I can't fault the subject matter, nor is it a fault of mine that I don't love everything. There is no fault. Just a lack of a connection.
I am glad that I bought this and gave it a shot, although I think I'm going to stick to the more modern TMNT storylines. I find I'm simply enjoying them more at this point.