Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1

A joke drawing on a slow night

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles began as a comic sketch. During a casual evening of brainstorming, Kevin Eastman drew a short, squat turtle wearing a mask with nunchaku strapped to its arms. The joke was the contradiction: a slow, cold-blooded reptile with the speed of a martial artist. Peter Laird suggested making it a team of four, each with a different weapon.

They meant it as a one-shot that sent up four of the most popular comics of the early 1980s: The New Mutants for teenage mutants, Cerebus for anthropomorphic animals, and Frank Miller's Ronin and Daredevil for ninja clans fighting over New York's underworld. The Turtles' origin borrows directly from Daredevil: a truck carrying radioactive ooze, a canister that strikes a boy in the face, a mentor named Splinter in place of Daredevil's Stick, and an evil clan called the Foot in place of the Hand. Even the cover of the first edition is a tribute to the first issue of Miller's Ronin.

Eastman and Laird paid for the printing with a tax refund and a loan from Eastman's uncle; one account puts the uncle's loan, from Quentin Eastman, at $1,000. They called their imprint Mirage Studios because, as Eastman put it, there was no actual studio, 'only kitchen tables and couches with lap boards.' They named the brothers after Renaissance artists, picking the names from Laird's copy of H. W. Janson's History of Art.

Eastman and Laird

Kevin Eastman was born May 30, 1962, in Portland, Maine, and grew up idolizing Jack Kirby. In 1983 he was working in a restaurant and shopping his comics around when he followed a waitress to Northampton, Massachusetts. Looking for a local underground paper to print his work, he met Peter Laird, born January 27, 1954, in North Adams, Massachusetts, who at the end of 1983 was earning ten dollars an illustration from a newspaper in Dover, New Hampshire.

The two made the book at their home at 28 Union Street in Dover. On April 16, 1984, the printer delivered the first copies there. Laird's newspaper experience paid off: the pair built a four-page press kit and mailed it to 180 television and radio stations and to the major wire services, and the coverage created demand for a comic almost nobody had seen yet.

The partnership turned into an empire and then came apart. Eastman sold most of his share to Laird and the Mirage Group on June 1, 2000, and Laird bought out his remaining interest on March 1, 2008. On October 19, 2009, Laird sold the franchise to Viacom, the parent of Nickelodeon.

The black-and-white boom

The book premiered in May 1984 at a comic convention in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, held at the Howard Johnson Motor Lodge on the Portsmouth traffic circle. A local newspaper had introduced the creators the day before. It was a period of intense speculation in comics, with especially strong interest in black-and-white books from small independent publishers, and the tiny print run made the first printing an instant collector's item. Within months, copies were trading at more than 50 times the cover price.

Laird marveled at it in 1985: 'The comic book we were afraid would sit around our living room in unsold boxes upon boxes is now being sold for approximately what a Conan #1 would go for. Believe me, this really blows our minds!' The book was hot enough that counterfeit copies appeared within its first year.

Demand changed the business overnight. The second issue drew advance orders of 15,000 copies, five times the first issue's entire run. Mirage reprinted issue #1 in June 1984, February 1985 and September 1985, with later printings in 1988 and 1992, so a first printing has to be told apart from its own reprints.

From kitchen table to six figures

The comic's success led to a role-playing game, then to a licensing agent, Mark Freedman, and a flood of merchandise. A five-part animated miniseries debuted in December 1987 and became a long-running series; in January 1988 Eastman and Laird met with Playmates Toys about action figures. Live-action films followed in 1990, 1991 and 1993. The oddball self-published parody became one of the most recognizable brands in children's entertainment.

In the collector market the first printing climbed steadily. Before September 2021, the highest price on record was $88,000 for a CGC 9.6 signed by Eastman and Laird, and a CGC 7.5 sold for $19,000 on August 21, 2021. Then a CGC 9.8 sold for $245,000 in a fixed-price sale, reported in early September 2021, a record for the issue.

That record lasted three months. On December 13, 2021, a New York auction house announced the sale of another CGC 9.8 for $250,000. At that time there were 8 copies in CGC 9.8 on the census and none higher. A signed CGC 9.8 copy brought $192,000 at auction on June 19, 2022. By December 2023 the census showed 35 copies at 9.8 and still none higher, and in September 2026 a CGC 9.6 sold at auction for $56,120.

Why high grades are so hard

Three things make a sharp copy rare. The run was tiny, about 3,000 copies by every account. The cover is mostly black, which makes the smallest crease or chip obvious. And the book was printed in an oversized magazine format that did not fit standard comic bags and boxes, so many copies were stored badly.

The exact print run is reported differently. Mirage Studios' own history and Kevin Eastman's biography give 3,275 copies. A grading company's 2021 report gives 3,250, and auction catalogs and press reports round to 3,000. This page uses 3,275 as the creators' figure.

To identify a first printing, look for the oversized magazine format and black-and-white interior; the issue was reprinted at least five times by Mirage between 1984 and 1992, and the second printing added a final dedication to Jack Kirby and Frank Miller. Volume 1 continued until 1993, and the fifth issue of November 1985 moved to the standard comic size, with the first four issues reprinted in that size with new color covers.

A franchise from 40 pages

The comic was intended as a single issue, but its popularity turned it into a series that Mirage published on and off from 1984 to 2014. From it came five television series, seven feature films, many video games and a long line of toys and merchandise.

For collectors, issue #1 marked the moment a self-published black-and-white book could become as valuable as the big publishers' keys. A leading price guide ranks it second on its list of the top 25 Copper Age comics, and no copy has yet graded above 9.8.

The numbers

First print run

3,275 per Mirage Studios and Eastman; 3,250 per a 2021 grading-company report; about 3,000 per auction catalogs

Pages

40, oversized magazine format

Later printings of #1

June 1984, February 1985, September 1985, November 1988, 1992

Census, December 13, 2021

8 at CGC 9.8, none higher

Census, December 2023

35 at CGC 9.8, none higher

Census, August 2026

72 at CGC 9.6, 37 higher

Timeline

1. 1983

   Kevin Eastman moves to Northampton, Massachusetts, and begins working with Peter Laird.

2. Apr 16, 1984

   The printer delivers the first copies of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 to 28 Union Street, Dover, New Hampshire.

3. May 5, 1984

   Eastman and Laird launch the book at their booth at a convention in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

4. Jun 1984

   Second printing of issue #1, with a dedication to Jack Kirby and Frank Miller.

5. Oct 1984

   Issue #2 is published, with advance orders of 15,000 copies.

6. Feb 1985

   Third printing of issue #1.

7. Sep 1985

   Fourth printing of issue #1.

8. Dec 1987

   A five-part animated miniseries debuts, leading to a long-running cartoon.

9. Jan 1988

   Eastman and Laird meet with Playmates Toys about action figures.

10. 1990

    The first live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film is released.

11. Jun 1, 2000

    Eastman sells most of his share of the franchise to Laird and the Mirage Group.

12. Oct 19, 2009

    Laird sells the franchise to Viacom, the parent of Nickelodeon.

13. Aug 21, 2021

    A CGC 7.5 sells for $19,000.

14. Sep 2021

    A CGC 9.8 sells for a record $245,000 in a fixed-price sale.

15. Dec 13, 2021

    Another CGC 9.8 sells for $250,000, a new record.

16. Jun 19, 2022

    A signed CGC 9.8 sells at auction for $192,000.

17. Dec 2023

    The CGC census shows 35 copies at 9.8, none higher.

18. Sep 2026

    A CGC 9.6 sells at auction for $56,120.

The world in 1984

• Jan 25, 1984

  In his State of the Union address, President Reagan announces plans for a permanent space station.

• Jun 4, 1984

  Bruce Springsteen releases Born in the U.S.A.; its CD is the first manufactured in the United States.

• Jun 8, 1984

  Ghostbusters and Gremlins open in theaters.

• Jun 25, 1984

  Prince releases Purple Rain.

• Jul 28, 1984

  The Summer Olympics open in Los Angeles.

• Aug 30, 1984

  Space Shuttle Discovery lifts off on its first mission.

• Nov 6, 1984

  Ronald Reagan defeats Walter Mondale with 59 percent of the popular vote.

Price record

A realized private sale is a completed transaction outside an auction room. The amount is what changed hands on the date shown. Private sales are reported less consistently than auction results, so a single comparable carries less weight than a run of them.

By reference price, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 is number 22 of 100 in the comics entries of the FLOAT 100. 92 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (22 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Mirage Studios was named for the fact that it did not exist: there was no studio, only kitchen tables and couches with lap boards.
• The Turtles' origin is a deliberate echo of Daredevil's: the same truck of radioactive waste, with the canister hitting a boy in the face.
• Michelangelo's name was misspelled 'Michaelangelo' in the original Mirage comics; Mirage's own issue list still uses that spelling.
• Among the titles on Splinter's bookshelf in issue #1 is Care and Keeping of your Turtles.
• A local newspaper reported in April 1984 that the pair had picked the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles over 'Guppies From Hell' and other candidates.
• The book was valuable fast enough that counterfeits were made in its first year.