Sketch Saturday: A Ninja Turtle

A Ninja Turtle this week, and frankly it could be any of them! Kevin Eastman's initial renderings of the light-stepping vigilantes tended towards the uniform - all four decked out in red masks, only their weapons differentiated them. No wonder Playmates Toys Inc et al found it necessary to colour code them. Despite the acres of merchandising that followed in their wake, the Ninja Turtles actually started off as a hyper violent cult comic. Intended as a parody companion piece to Frank Miller's then current Daredevil tenure (not to mention allusions to such varied works as Ronin, Marvel's New Mutants, and Dave Sim's Cerberus the Aardvark), Ninja Turtles kicked off a minor self-publishing revolution. Unfortunately, most of it was opportunist tat.

My favourite was always sci-fi whizz-kid Donatello. Although, I did like the idea of shuriken tossing, cape-clad fifth Turtle named Kirby...



Cowabunga!