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The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' origin story paid homage to the first issue of Daredevil from 1963, in which young Matt Murdock is blinded by a radioactive isotope while pushing an old blind man from the path of an oncoming truck. Drawing inspiration from some of their favorite contemporary comics, including Frank Miller's epic samurai adventure Ronin and his celebrated run on Marvel Comics' Daredevil - along with their mutual love of Jack Kirby - they set to work developing the Turtles universe. With their work on the first Fugitoid story coming to an end, the pair decided to make the Teenager Mutant Ninja Turtles their next comic book project. The more they thought about it, however, the more potential they saw in the offbeat concept. We were just pissing our pants that night, to be honest. That was in pencil, but Pete inked it, and added 'teenage mutant' to the 'ninja turtle' part. "Then, of course, I had to top his sketch, so I drew four of them standing in a dramatic pose. "Pete drew a cooler one," remembers Eastman. One night at Mirage Studios in November 1983, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird were hard at work on the latest chapter of their Fugitoid comic when Eastman, struck by some unknown inspiration, drew a masked, nunchuck-wielding "ninja turtle." He showed it to Laird, and the two of them shared a laugh at the sheer goofiness of the premise.