Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1

History

The concept was born in late 1983 during a casual late-night drawing session at Peter Laird's home in New Hampshire, when Kevin Eastman sketched a turtle standing upright with nunchaku strapped to its arms purely to make his collaborator laugh; Laird suggested expanding the gag into a team of four, each armed differently. The two funded production through a tax refund and a $1,000 loan from Eastman's uncle Quentin, forming Mirage Studios — a name they chose because, as Eastman later put it, there was no actual studio, only kitchen tables and couches. They printed approximately 3,275 copies in an oversized magazine format on cheap newsprint, advertised the issue in their own anthology Gobbledygook and in a full-page ad in Comics Buyer's Guide, and debuted the book at a comic convention held at a Sheraton Hotel in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in May 1984. Eastman and Laird had intended the book as a one-shot, but demand immediately outpaced supply, and a second printing followed that same June.

Trivia · 8 facts

• First appearance of Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo (the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), as well as Splinter, Shredder (Oroku Saki), and Hamato Yoshi — all in a single issue.
• Published May 1984 by Mirage Studios; written, penciled, inked, and lettered entirely by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird — the entire creative team was two people.
• The 40-page issue was printed in an oversized (7.5" × 11") magazine format on cheap newsprint with black-and-white interior art; the cover used a red-ink overlay as the only color, because it was the only color Eastman and Laird could afford to print.
• Initial print run was approximately 3,275 copies; a second printing followed in June 1984 and a third in February 1985, with the third printing reaching around 35,000 copies. The first printing is the only one whose inside back cover carries an ad for Eastman and Laird's Gobbledygook zines.
• The story deliberately parodies Frank Miller's Daredevil: the Turtles' origin mirrors Daredevil's radioactive-canister accident, Splinter's name parodies Daredevil's sensei Stick, and the Foot Clan is a direct satirical stand-in for Daredevil's Hand. Eastman and Laird also cited The New Mutants, Cerebus, and Ronin as structural inspirations.
• Shredder (Oroku Saki) is both introduced and killed in this single issue — stabbed by Leonardo on a New York rooftop, then blasted off the building by his own thermite grenade after Donatello deflects it with his bo staff. Peter Laird later acknowledged Shredder was originally conceived as a one-shot villain.
• The inside front cover of the second printing carries a dedication page — illustrated by Leonardo holding a sign — reading 'This book is dedicated to Jack Kirby and Frank Miller,' making explicit the creative debts Eastman and Laird felt to both artists.
• The issue spawned multiple later reprint formats, including a 1986 colorized edition (published by First Comics), a 1992 'Special Deluxe Edition' hardcover reprint limited to 500 signed copies, and IDW's Ultimate Collection hardcover (2012), which reprinted issues #1–7. The success of the first issue also directly triggered the mid-1980s black-and-white independent comics boom, producing numerous animal-parody imitators such as Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters and Pre-Teen Dirty-Gene Kung-Fu Kangaroos, nearly all of which failed commercially.

Cast · 8 characters

Full credits

Full plot ⚠ may contain spoilers