Tick (character)

The Tick
File:The-tick.gif The Tick
Publication information
Publisher	New England Comics Press
First appearance	The Tick #1, March 1988
Created by	Ben Edlund
In-story information
Alter ego	None
Abilities	Nigh-invulnerability, super strength, "Drama power"

The Tick is a comedic superhero created by Ben Edlund in 1986.

Character profile and history

A square-jawed, muscular bright blue figure with antennae sticking up from his head, the Tick is a surreal parody of superheroes. The Tick is high-spirited, frequently obtuse, and prone to making odd, dim remarks and "inspirational" speeches filled with confusing, bizarre metaphors. His superpowers are nigh-invulnerability, which allows him to crash and bang about without injury; super strength (he can bend a steel girder with relative ease); and something referred to as "drama power", or basically a tendency for the Tick's powers to increase as the situation becomes more dramatic. He can also survive out in space without a suit and underwater without oxygen. His battle cry is "Spoooooon!" which he decided upon while eating breakfast, specifically the cereal "Drama Flakes".

Like many superheroes, The Tick has a sidekick: an accountant named Arthur, who wears a white moth suit that allows him to fly, although he is often mistaken for a bunny due to the long ear-like antennae of his costume and the fact that his wings are often folded up inside a backpack. The Tick is impulsive, and Arthur serves as a sort of conscience; the hero often irks his sidekick. Arthur's "battle cry" is "Not in the face! Not in the face!" (a famous quote from the 1984 film Repo Man).

Originally featured in an independent comic book series, The Tick and Arthur were made popular by an animated television series (1994 – 96) and a live action television series (2001 – 02). Both series aired on the Fox Network. According to the live action series The Tick is 6'6" weighs 230lbs and has black hair and blue eyes.

In all of his incarnations, The Tick is surrounded by a cast of equally absurd superheroes and villains, many of them parodies of popular comic book characters and character types. The Tick lives in a city called "The City". In the animated series, The Tick was assigned to the city after his "Cabinet of Terror", billed by Tick as the best destruction device 1974 had to offer, exploded during his city alignment selection trials at the National Super Institute Convention in Reno, Nevada. According to the series' companion book, Mighty Blue Justice!, at least one of the judges was amazed by this (perhaps by The Tick's survival), giving The Tick a 10 of 10. People have postulated that The City was a home for "reject" heroes and villains; this account flies in the face of that.

In the original comic books, the Tick is/was apparently legally insane, an escapee from a mental institution (possibly for super-powered individuals) located not too far from The City.

Franchise history

In 1986, 17-year-old Ben Edlund created The Tick as a mascot for the newsletter of New England Comics in Boston, where he was a customer on occasion. The character, which bore an uncanny resemblance in costume and personality to The Cockroach from Cerebus the Aardvark, became popular and the store financed a few black and white comic books, written and illustrated by Edlund and featuring the character. In 1989, The Tick #4 introduced Arthur.

The Tick became extensively popular in the underground comics scene. Soon New England Comics published a regular series in color which featured the character. Spinoffs followed which featured characters such as Paul The Samurai, Man-Eating Cow, and Chainsaw Vigilante. Edlund continued to write and illustrate these projects through his years as an undergraduate film student at Massachusetts College of Art.

File:TheTickMightyBlueJustice.PNG

The Tick: Mighty Blue Justice!

In 1994, the Fox Network licensed The Tick as a Saturday morning cartoon show, which Edlund wrote and co-produced. The Tick was voiced by Townsend Coleman, and his sidekick Arthur by Micky Dolenz in season one, with Rob Paulsen taking over the Arthur role in seasons two and three. The series also featured Die Fledermaus as a shallow, self-absorbed Batman parody; Sewer Urchin, a Rain Man-like version of Aquaman; and American Maid, a more noble superheroine featuring aspects of Wonder Woman and Captain America. Reruns on Comedy Central helped make the series a cult hit with adults. The 1997 book The Tick: Mighty Blue Justice! by Greg Hyland was published as a tie-in with the animated series.

In 1995, Fox Interactive published a scrolling fighter video game based on the animated series for the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. They were criticized for having very long stages with a ridiculous amount of generic enemies to combat.

In 2001, Fox introduced a live-action TV series (Produced by Columbia-TriStar Television), written and executive produced by Edlund. The series starred Patrick Warburton as The Tick, David Burke as Arthur, Nestor Carbonell as Batmanuel (a Eurotrash Latin lover Spaniard version of Die Fledermaus) and Liz Vassey as Captain Liberty (a version of American Maid). These changes were due to copyright issues — characters created specifically for the cartoon series could not be reused, but ones from the comic were allowed. Once again, the series found a cult audience, but this incarnation failed to find a larger audience.

The live-action series was released on DVD through Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2003. Ben Edlund says on one of the DVD commentary tracks that he hopes the sales of the DVD might spur development of either a revived series or a movie, similar to the fates of other cult TV series, such as Firefly (which he was a producer on). As of 2006, this has yet to happen.

In June 2005 the Toon Disney network began to air episodes of the animated series along with such other shows as X-Men in an attempt to counter Cartoon Network's popular Adult Swim block. The Tick now airs at 10:00 PM Eastern time. It also occasionally airs on the ABC Family channel as part of the Jetix block.

Buena Vista Home Entertainment released the first season of The Tick on DVD on August 29, 2006. The release contains only 12 of the 13 first-season episodes. On May 31, 2006, Disney released the following statement regarding the missing episode: "Due to creative considerations episode 11 ("The Tick vs. The Mole Men") is not included. However, we hope to include it in future Tick releases." [1]

Characters

Quite a few characters have appeared throughout the three incarnations of The Tick. Due to copyright issues, some characters could not be used in all versions.

Main characters

Picture	Character	Media	Notable powers	Notes
	American Maid	Animated series	Skilled acrobat, can throw her tiara and stilettos with extreme accuracy	Wonder Woman/Captain America parody
	Arthur	Comic, Animated series, Live-action	Flight (with moth suit)	The Tick's sidekick
	Batmanuel	Live-action	None	Parody of Batman loosely based on Die Fledermaus
	Captain Liberty	Live-action		Wonder Woman parody and loosely based on American Maid
	Die Fledermaus	Animated series	None	Batman parody (also the name of an opera by Johann Strauss II; die Fledermaus is German for 'the bat')
	Sewer Urchin	Animated series	Super stench	Rain Man parody. In the sewers he has a luxurious apartment largely furnished with salvage from the sewers; however, he has relatively few guests.
	The Tick	Comic, Animated series, Live-action	Nigh-invulnerability, Superhuman strength, "Drama power"

Other characters

Main article: List of minor characters in The Tick

Many supporting characters appeared in the animated series.

Comic book

Main article: The Tick (comic book)

The Tick has also appeared in other comics as well as books. For a full list, see List of Tick-related published material.

Animated series

Tick
File:TickSpoo.JPG The animated Tick patrols The City
Created by	Ben Edlund
Starring	Townsend Coleman Mickey Dolenz (1994-1995) Rob Paulsen (1995-1996)
Country of origin	USA
Production
Running time	30 minutes (includes commercials)
Original release
Network	FOX
Release	September 10, 1994 – November 27, 1996

List of episodes in the animated series

Season 1

• 1 "The Tick vs The Idea Men" (originally aired 10 September 1994)
• 2 "The Tick vs Chairface Chippendale" (originally aired 17 September 1994)
• 3 "The Tick vs Dinosaur Neil" (originally aired 24 September 1994)
• 4 "The Tick vs Mr. Mental" (originally aired 1 October 1994)
• 5 "The Tick vs The Breadmaster" (originally aired 8 October 1994)
• 6 "The Tick vs El Seed" (originally aired 15 October 1994)
• 7 "The Tick vs The Tick" (originally aired 22 October 1994)
• 8 "The Tick vs The Uncommon Cold" (originally aired 29 October 1994)
• 9 "The Tick vs Brainchild" (originally aired 5 November 1994)
• 10 "The Tick vs Pineapple Pokopo" (originally aired 12 November 1994)
• 11 "The Tick vs The Mole-Men" (originally aired 19 November 1994) (#11 Not Included On Season One Box Set)
• 12 "The Tick vs The Proto Clown" (originally aired 4 February 1995)
• 13 "The Tick vs Arthur's Bank Account" (originally aired 11 February 1995)

Season 2

• 14 "The Little Wooden Boy and the Belly of Love" (originally aired 9 September 1995)
• 15 "Alone Together" (originally aired 16 September 1995)
• 16 "Armless but Not Harmless" (originally aired 23 September 1995)
• 17 "Leonardo da Vinci and His Fightin' Genius Time Commandos!" (originally aired 30 September 1995)
• 18 "Coach Fussell's Lament" (originally aired 7 October 1995)
• 19 "Bloomsday" (originally aired 21 October 1995)
• 20 "Evil Sits Down for a Moment" (originally aired 4 November 1995)
• 21 "Heroes" (parody of the TV show COPS) (originally aired 11 November 1995)
• 22 "Ants in Pants!" (originally aired 18 November 1995)
• 23 "The Tick Loves Santa!" (originally aired 25 November 1995)
• 24 "Tick vs The Big Nothing" (originally aired 3 February 1996)
• 25 "Tick vs Reno, Nevada" (originally aired 10 February 1996)
• 26 "Grandpa Wore Tights" (originally aired 17 February 1996)

Season 3

• 27 "That Mustache Feeling" (originally aired: 14 September 1996)
• 28 "Tick vs Dot and Neil's Wedding" (originally aired 21 September 1996)
• 29 "Sidekicks Don't Kiss" (originally aired 28 September 1996)
• 30 "Tick vs Arthur" (originally aired 6 October 1996)
• 31 "Devil in Diapers" (originally aired 12 October 1996)
• 32 "Tick vs Filth" (originally aired 26 October 1996)
• 33 "Tick vs Europe" (originally aired 2 November 1996)
• 34 "Tick vs Science" (originally aired 9 November 1996)
• 35 "Tick vs Prehistory" (originally aired 16 November 1996)
• 36 "Tick vs Education" (originally aired 30 November 1996)

Live-action series

Tick
File:TheTickLiveActionBoxArt.jpg The Tick Live Action series DVD cover
Created by	Ben Edlund
Starring	Patrick Warburton David Burke Nestor Carbonell Liz Vassey
Country of origin	USA
Production
Running time	30 minutes (includes commercials)
Original release
Network	FOX
Release	November 8, 2001 – January 24, 2002

List of episodes in the live-action series

The episodes are listed here in their intended order (according to the DVD release). When they were originally aired on the Fox Network in the United States, they were aired out of order.

• 1 "Pilot" (originally aired 8 November 2001)
• 2 "The Terror" (unaired but included on the DVD)
• 3 "Arthur, Interrupted" (originally aired 24 January 2002)
• 4 "The License" (originally aired 6 December 2001)
• 5 "Arthur Needs Space" (originally aired 13 December 2001)
• 6 "Couples" (originally aired 5 December 2001)
• 7 "The Funeral" (originally aired 15 November 2001)
• 8 "The Tick Vs. Justice" (originally aired 17 January 2002)
• 9 "The Big Leagues" (originally aired 21 December 2001)

Trivia

• In an episode of Angel that Ben Edlund worked on, there's a scene where Angel kills a villain with a spoon by throwing it at him. It pierces the villain's head or neck and he dies. Spike looks at Angel and says, "A spoon?," which could be a reference to Ben Edlund's use of "Spoon" as Tick's battle cry, but by extension here being used as an actual weapon.
• Another episode that Ben Edlund heavily collaborated on with Joss Whedon was the puppet episode, which one could say in some form is a reference to the Human Ton and Handy.
• When Family Guy started its fourth season, Peter Griffin made a list of shows that Fox cancelled between its temporary cancellation and that episode. Among the shows was the live action version of The Tick.
• Apart from The Tick and Arthur, The Terror and Arthur's sister, Dot, are the only characters to appear in the comic book, the animated series, and the live action show.

Sources

• The Tick: Circus Maximus, NEC Comics, 2004.
• The Tick: Mighty Blue Justice!, Hyland, Greg, Berkley Boulevard Books, New York, 1997

External links

• New England Comics
• The Tick (1994 – 1997) at IMDb
• The Tick (2001 – 2002) at IMDb
• The Tick (1994 – 1997} at TV.com
• The Tick (2001 – 2002) at TV.com