Any Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan worth his nunchaku knows that the characters first appeared in a comic book that was published in 1984. But how did the turtles look in their first rendering, the previous year, when Kevin Eastman sketched out the quartet of amphibian brothers to amuse his fellow creator, Peter Laird? Well, now we know, because that pencil drawing — which even features each turtle’s signature weapon — is open for bidding at Heritage Auctions. If you’ve got a minimum of $6,000 to throw down, this piece of animation history can be yours. As The Mary Sue notes, “it looks like these turtles were never meant to pursue martial arts. They certainly have more, um, clunky features, like real turtles, who are lovely creatures, but not exactly the most graceful or agile animals.” Even so, we think we detect an early hint of the je ne sais quoi that made TMNT a multimedia sensation.
