Travel Blog: Visiting the Birthplace of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Dover, New Hampshire may seem like a quaint small town... but in this small town back in the early 1980's: Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird created a little independent comic book called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It was while living in Dover that the two men created their own comic company called Mirage Studios... mostly because the studio was literally just a mirage; due to the fact that they were making their comics from their shared home they were living in. While the two would eventually leave New Hampshire to flourish their quickly growing in popularity franchise, the street where they lived while creating the Ninja Turtles still remains.
Upon visiting this holy ground for Ninja Turtles fans, I quickly realized that the street Mirage Studios once was housed on definitely shows the humble beginnings of the Ninja Turtles' creators. While some modern houses have been built on the street, most homes look over fifty years old now. Also, I quickly realized that many of these older homes have may not even had washing machines. Tons of clothes were swinging on clothes lines outside many homes (not photographed here out of respect of not wanting to show peoples' literal dirty laundry), and I also spotted several people walking down the street to a local community center that apparently had a washing machine; as people had bags of clothes and bottles of detergent in their hands. I have no idea if the Ninja Turtles creators had a washing machine in their home... but how humbling would it be to learn that Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman had to walk down the street to a community center to wash their clothes the day before they debuted the first Ninja Turtles comic at a nearby comic convention.
If you did not spot the Ninja Turtles manhole cover (installed a year ago thanks to a crowd funded campaign), you'd have no idea that a multi-million dollar franchise started on this very street. One can only imagine how nearby residents feel about their community's ties to the Ninja Turtles. Some might feel very happy that two of their own made it big. Others might feel anger and envy; wondering why life didn't deal them as well a good hand. It's a question I decided was best not to ask residents I passed by. Also, there were signs up nearby the famous Ninja Turtles birth site to stay away from individuals' private property. So I simply took my pictures, walked up and down the street a bit... and then moved on.
As a fun side note, I also made a point of visiting the closest comic book store near the famous site: Jetpack Comics. The creators of the Ninja Turtles were actually longtime friends with the owner of the store. Just click the center photo above and read the fun news story that I saw hanging on the wall about the owner and his store. Needless to say, this store had more Ninja Turtles comics than any comic book store I had ever been in. Plenty of exclusive variant covers from modern Ninja Turtles comics, tons of rare variant cover reprints of the famous Ninja Turtles/Cerebus crossover, some fun old Turtles merchandise, and a nice stash of classic Turtles comics from the old Mirage Studios days... although I may have picked out a nice amount of those classic comics to buy before I left. Sorry to any disappointed Turtles fans. ;)
