Dean Clarrain

TMNT Adventures

 
Dean Clarrain is a comic book writer who wrote Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures, the comic based on the 1987 animated series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles which was based on an adult based comic book of the same name by Mirage Studios. 
 
Clarrain wrote the book from the fourth issue. Up until that point the comic was an adaption of episodes of the then popular cartoon Clarrain was notable for dispensing with the shows continuity and writing original stories based on the mainstream versions of the turtles.
 
Over time the stories became more mature similar to the original Mirage book, he even retconned many of the cartoon elements of the early issues particularly expanding the backstories of Hamato Yoshi and Oroku Saki and even added the character Sarnath based on a vague reference in the adaption of the cartoon's Incredible Shrinking Turtles episode.
 
Many of the stories contained evironmentalist themes as well as real life spiritual and religeous themes. Among them the turtles visit Tibet and rescue an incarnation of the Buddha from the Chinese Goverment, in Iran they become involved in trying to save the Black Stone of Mecca as well as in Brazil they meet an ally who is trying to avenge  the death of Chico Mendes.
 
These elements made Archie very cautious, one storyline involving a dystopian future were Earth has succumbed to global warming became lauded by fans but was met with disdain by Archie execs. Clarrain's last issue was #70 having left the book under a cloud. The last two issues were stock stories written by Brian Thomas.
 

Tales of the TMNT vol. 2

 
In 2004 Clarrain was apparently brought back writing a number is issues of the second volume of Tales of the TMNT for Mirage. This time writing the original black and white turtles he was paired with his long time TMNT Adventures penciller Chris Allen.
 
The three stories Clarrain was credited for was Scars which expanded the backstory of the character TMNT Vol. 4 character Cha Ocho and the beginnings of his feude with Leonardo. Tales of April which chronicaled April O'Neil's trek across Alaska after learning the truth about her origin. The final story redited to Clarrain was The Pantheon which posited a possible origin for the Rat King.
 

The big reveal

 
In Mirage staff writer Steve Murphy blog the Fifth Turtle Murphy did several entries talking of his working on Archie's TMNT Adventures series and the problems which caused him to leave the book. He also claimed to be helping Dean Clarrain with the Forever War mini series which would tell the final unpublished storyline of the Archie turtles.
 
In his final blog entry Murphy revealed that he was the writer of Archie's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures and Dean Clarrain was a pseudonym. His reasons for creating the Clarrain persona are still unknown.