Some of that history is displayed on his store’s website. Lefevre said he’s published work since he was in the second grade, but to actually show off his past work and remember those times is far and few between.

“It’s probably been years since I pulled these out,” Lefevre said while displaying his past sketches and official penciled-in pieces for comic books in his portfolios. “I’m sure I’ve looked at them more, online, but I like bringing them out like this. It brings back memories because a lot of times I can remember what I was doing the day that I was drawing one of these or what was going on in my life at the time. So it’s kind of like a photo album for me.”

These portfolios show comics for the ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ and ‘Transformers’ series that were ongoing in the 2000s or advertisements for memorable mascots like Chester the Cheetah for the chip brand Cheetos.

When looking back on his time with the Ninja Turtles, Lefevre reflected on his own experience with the series, before and when he worked on it.

A sketch of a turtle head from ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ drawn by Bob Lefevre is shown.

“I found pictures of myself at birthday parties and, you know, having the Ninja Turtle cake and getting the Ninja Turtle toys,” Lefevre said. “So it goes back pretty far, as it is with a lot of people my age. I think it continues to you know, with generations now. If I would have told myself as that child that you will be drawing these characters for a living someday, I wouldn’t have believed it or it would’ve blown my (mind).”

The style of his work penciling in the panels and dialogue of the comics shows the turtle team in bold lines and sharp angles. He said his work is a modern hip-hop comic book style.

His influences for his work, Lefevre said, were two people: Humberto Ramos and Ron Grant.

“(Ramos’) artwork, it was hugely inspiring to me,” Lefevre said. “I went to college with Ron Grant. He was a senior when I was a freshman, so I was kind of looking up to him. And to this day, I’d stay in contact with him from time to time, just to say ‘Hey, what’s up’ and that sort of thing. And he does a lot of the same stuff in the works.”

While the two were inspirations and influences of Lefevre’s work, he still made a name for himself with his own original style and ideas throughout his career.

An advertisement made by Bob Lefevre of Chester Cheetah for the chip brand ‘Cheetos’ shown at Bob’s Bullpen last week.

One of the earliest pieces that Levefre said was where he got his start was a comic strip published in The Alpena News, titled “The Adventures of Aaron”.

The strip was created by both Aaron Warner and Bob Lefevre and was an ongoing series for over one year. It debuted on March 18, 2000, and displayed Lefevre’s distinct modern hip-hop style in each panel.

“Bill Speer was the one that greenlit it,” Lefevre said. “He kind of did a favor for me because, you know, being from Alpena, I was just a young kid. But they knew I was determined to do this and so they carried the strip and so that was kind of my launching pad for stuff.”

Another major part of Lefevre’s career was something he’d had ideas of for years until it came to fruition in 2008: ‘Aletheia’, a three-issue comic book penciled, inked, covered, and written by Bob Lefevre.

It was a miniseries that he was given permission to produce after hitting every deadline with his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles work. In the comic world, Lefevre said that was a big thing to do consistently, especially as younger artists had a huge problem of not keeping up with them.

The first comic strip of ‘The Adventures of Aaron’ made by Aaron Warner and Bob Lefevre is shown in the March 18, 2000 edition of The Alpena News.

“I pitched (Aletheia) as a three-issue miniseries with the idea to do more if I wanted to do more,” Lefevre said. “If you’re going into it with just three issues, you’re pretty much solidifying the idea that you’ll be able to at least sell those three issues without it being canceled before the story’s done. It became a really nice body of work that I could show to get other jobs.”

As Lefevre talked about his work with the Ninja Turtles, the newly rebooted animated movie, ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem’, was brought up.

The movie, which premiered Wednesday, will bring a new iteration of the characters to modern audiences. As someone who’s had such a large connection with the series, Lefevre said he hopes to see the characters stick to the personalities that have been with each character since the first rendition.

Sanctuary Cinema, downtown Alpena’s movie theater, started showing the movie on Friday.

“Leonardo was my favorite,” Lefevre said. “I think it was because he was the leader. Whenever I do art projects, I like to be the leader on it because I want to make sure that it’s done, and it’s done right. I kind of gravitated towards that character, but there are people out there that will tell you that Michelangelo is their guy because they’re the party animal. Or Raphael’s the tough guy because that’s who they identify with. Each of these personalities, I think someone can kind of say, ‘That’s my dude,’ you know?

A double-sided cover Bob Lefevre made for the ‘Transformers: Infiltration’ series, displayed at Bob’s Bullpen last week.

I think that as long as they stick to that concept of keeping the turtles in their characters, they’ll be successful. It’s kind of like the winning mixture for them.”

A News article written by Connie Stafford announces the debut of the comic strip ‘The Adventures of Aaron’ on March 18, 2000.