Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters

Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters
book one of Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters
Genre	parody
Publication date	January 1986 – January 1988

Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters (or ARBBH) was written by Don Chin and originally illustrated by Patrick Parsons (under the name Parsonavich) and Chris Walker, and later by Sam Kieth. It was initially published January 1986 by Eclipse Comics and later on by Parody Press and then Dynamite Entertainment.

It was the first unofficial spoof of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, replacing teenage with adolescent, mutant with radioactive, ninja with black belt and turtles with hamsters.

It was a "parody of a parody" as the TMNT started as a parody of popular eighties comics, such as Daredevil and Ronin.

In 1977, NASA launched a probe containing four hamsters to destroy a mysterious mass of radioactive, gelatinous substance that was hovering around the Earth's atmosphere. Exposure to the substance mutated the hamsters into anthropomorphic creatures, whose vessel later crashed down near a Tibetan monastery. There, they were adopted by the monks and trained in the martial arts. The four of them are named after actors from action and kung fu movies: Clint (Eastwood), Chuck (Norris), Bruce (Lee), and Jackie (Chan).