I always had a weak spot for the turtles before they became a multi-merchandising-enterprise. The movies sucked, but the original self-published comic-book was great. The creators, Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, made a shitload of money when they sold the rights to the charakters, but they spent a lot of it on enterprises like Tundra Publishing aka. they invested into the scene they grew out of it.
"The official Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Treasury" by Stanley Wiaters (Villard Books, 1991) gives you the full story of Eastman, Laird, the Mirage Studios and the Turtles.

It's about time for the turtles to return and there are quite a few news over at the Home of the Ninja Turtles!

Some people claim that John Woo is already working on bringing those karate-reptiles back on the big screen.
And here are five minutes of footage for a potential CGI-version and if you got a fast connection, here is your Download of 34.8 MB to see it for yourself.