Yes, I got the Turtles before they broke big. I was taken by a full page ad in CBG advertising a Titans/Elektra/X-Men spoof. I've got first printings of the bw comics, but TMNT quickly became a parody of itself and a lot of crummy product followed in its wake:

Here are the memorable titles that I will never forget for as long as I live:

Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters (people speculated in this dreck)
Pre-teen Dirty Gene Kung Fu Kangaroos


...help, I've forgotten most of those crummy comics!

"Power Pachyderms" at Marvel, which started off as Adult Thermonuclear Samurai Elephants.

Co-created by Roger Stern, IIRC.

Dynamite have got new Hamsters stuff coming out.

I'm writing an essay on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

I had those issues, too! There was a great one where they met Jack Kirby.

I've seen something somewhere about Geriatric Kung-Fu Gophers.

During the 1980s I didn't live near any place where you could get indy comics, so I missed out on the great black-and-white explosion. For the most part I don't get the impression I was missing much.

The early comics are on the official Ninja Turtle website if you wanna give them a read.

Dreck? They were great fun! I still have mine.

Also cool was Fish Police. I loved Fish Police.

I have (with the exception of issue No. 1), all of the original b&w TMNT issues. I agree, after they hit big (dare I say they sold out?) they became utter shit. And speaking of writing papers about them, when I was in college I had to take a writing class for my history major. In it we had to use "primary sources". I had a genius idea of using the original comics as my "primary sources" for the history of the TMNT. I then defined a fad using (ha-ha) scholarly sources, and analyzed whether TMNT were indeed a true fad. Anyway, I got an "A" and the professor made a big deal about it. I like to think of it as my own Kirk-Kobayashi Maru moment.

I had the Hamster comic. It sucked and I never sought out the other rip-offs. I find people are doing the same now with the success of Mouse Guard, with lame rip-offs.

I've got the First Comics trade of the early issues colorized. I've heard that even that trade is now hard to find.

Okay, I confess, that remark was just me echoing the critical consensus of that time. I don't remember buying any of the copycat titles myself, but it seems Nagoo agrees with the critical sentiment of that period. I remember Fish Police, that got better reviews.

Oh, don't get me wrong, the Hamsters DID kind of suck and were indeed an obvious ripoff -- but they were so shameless, so shamelessly goofy and so knowingly bad that I liked 'em.

Fish Police was a genuinely good comic, as I recall. In fact, I'm pretty sure it later moved to the Epic imprint. Now that I think about it, it may even have gotten a cartoon.

It was a cartoon!

Neat. And Sam Keith inked those early issues. Also neat.

In fact, let me rephrase that, it was me echoing the critical sentiment, I don't remember how many reviews I read.

Oh yeah, I remember the silly TMNT parody comics (parodies of a parody!). There was Geriatric Gangrene Jiujitsu Gerbils and Mildly Microwaved Pre-pubescent Kung-Fu Gophers, among others. I can't remember more than the Dirty Geen Kangaroos and the Black-belt Hamsters, but I think there were a few more along those lines.

Oh yes, the Gerbils and the Gophers, how could I forget such high lit? And how about The Dark Gnat?

I liked the Gerbils. They were stupid, but fun. I think they fought a giant sumo wrestler.

It's all before my time.

There were the "Naive Inter-dimensional Commando Koalas", as well.

I never got into the Turtles or related Commando/Blackbelt/Radioactive/Transgendered critters, but jeez, I bought a lot of shit back then.

You mean the Gnatrat? Yeah, I actually kinda liked that.

GoogaMooga mentioned this one:



This wasn't just a parody of TMNT but also a parody of American Flagg, too.

And another:



And another:



And another:



And some others here:



Of course, the proliferation of all this stuff led to this:



Wherein Boris slaughters characters who appear similar to Cerebus, Usagi Yojimbo, TMNT, the Hamsters, the Chameleon Commandos, and others (even Ambush Bug, too).

I just started elementary school around the time these things were published and wouldn't have known what a comic shop was yet, much less known about the TMNT (until their cartoon debuted).