Kevin Eastman

There's something wonderfully meta about Kevin Eastman appearing as a comics character in his own creation — the co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stepping from the drawing board directly onto the page in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #57 in 1993, right in the thick of the Copper/Modern Age. Sharing issues with Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Splinter themselves, this is as inside-baseball as comics gets. His catalog appearances are rare — which only adds to the collector's-curiosity appeal — and the fact that his name later surfaces in IDW's Orphan Black: Helsinki makes this a pleasingly eclectic little trail to follow. A true artifact of comics history wearing its own name on its chest.