Information AboutThe Tick |
The Tick is the name of a blue-costumed muscular Superhero who fights crime in a city simply called "The City". He is an Absurdist Spoof of the superhero Genre , originally found in an independent comic book series started in 1988 by cartoonist Ben Edlund , subsequently gaining popularity through a 1994 Animated Television Series on the Fox Network . A video game, a short-lived live-action television series, and even a board game have all been based on the character. __TOC__ CHARACTER PROFILE 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 quipping odd, dim remarks and "inspirational" speeches filled with bizarre metaphors. His Superpowers are nigh-invulnerability, which allows him to crash and bang about without injury (though not necessarily without pain); super strength (he can bend a steel girder with 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. Despite his nigh-invulnerability, in the animated series, the Tick is portrayed as being vulnerable to blows to the head, which often cause temporary brain damage. He is known for his nonsensical Battle Cry , " Spoooooon !", which he decided upon one day while eating breakfast (specifically the cereal "Drama Flakes"). Originally the Tick's costume was meant to be brown, but it was decided that blue looked better in print, thus it became blue. In ''The Tick vs. The Tick'', where Tick fights Barry, an unstable hero who also calls himself "the Tick", Barry wears a brown costume. Like many superheroes, The Tick has a , 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. The Tick is impulsive, and Arthur serves as a sort of conscience; he also figures out the schemes of villains and formulates plans to stop them. Arthur's "battle cry" (so to speak) is "Not in the face! Not in the face!" 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 feet 6 inches and weighs 230 pounds (eighteen inches and a hundred seventy pounds less than his dimensions in the comic) and has black hair and blue eyes. In all of his incarnations, The Tick is surrounded by a cast of equally absurd heroes and villains, many of them parodies of popular comic book characters and character types. Few of the "superheroes" in the Tick mythos have powers that would measure up to those of DC or Marvel Comics characters, but their foes are often equally silly and/or weak. 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" (described by the Tick as the "best destruction device 1974 had to offer") exploded, leaving him unharmed, during his city alignment selection trials at the National Super Institute Convention in Reno, Nevada . According to the series' companion book, ''The Tick: Mighty Blue Justice!'', at least one of the judges was amazed by this (perhaps by The Tick's survival), awarding The Tick a score of 10 out of 10. In the original comic books, the Tick is/was apparently legally insane, an escapee from a mental institution located not too far from The City. In the live action series, the Tick was tricked into moving to (and protecting) The City after irritating the employees of a remote bus station he had sworn to protect. HISTORY 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 somewhat resembled 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. ''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. Spinoff s 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 . 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 1994, Fox Interactive published a Beat 'em Up video game based on the animated and comic series, released on the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis . The game was panned by critics for having very long stages with ridiculous hordes of generic enemies to combat and a nonsensical game ending. 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 '' (for which he was a writer and producer). 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'' currently airs at Midnight 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'' animated series 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 releases of ''The Tick''." {Link without Title} The UK edition of the first season, released the following year by Liberation Entertainment Ltd., presented all 13 episodes. On (though, earlier episodes used similar comic book parodies, and are available on the DVD releases). The UK edition of this second season is available for pre-order at many online retailers for a release on October 8 , 2007 and the cover artwork and title both proclaim it to be "The Complete Season 2". It may be worth noting that both deleted episodes (as well as four from the third season) were written by Christopher McCulloch , creator of the Cartoon Network (and, by extension, Warner Bros.) series '' The Venture Bros. ;'' there have, however, been no official claims as to whether this is the real reason behind the omissions. CHARACTERS A few characters have appeared throughout the three incarnations of The Tick. Apart from The Tick and Arthur, the only characters to appear in the comic book, the animated series, and the live-action show are The Terror, Arthur's sister Dot, and Fish Boy, The Lost Prince of Atlantis. Due to copyright laws, some characters could not be used in all versions. Main characters Other characters See Also: List of minor characters in The Tick COMIC BOOK See Also: 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
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