To remove the first character you would use:
var myOriginalString = ",'first string','more','even more'";
var myString = myOriginalString.substring(1);
I’m not sure this will be the result you’re looking for though because you will still need to split it to create an array with it. Maybe something like:
var myString = myOriginalString.substring(1);
var myArray = myString.split(',');
Keep in mind, the ‘ character will be a part of each string in the split here.