Slashdot Mirror

If you're lucky enough to live in the Boston area, you can walk right into a New England Comics store and they'll have piles of copies, or you can try Newbury Comics (which is more of a music store than a comic store, in spite of the name) which usually has copies of Tick available.

Otherwise, any comic book shop should either have it or be able to get it, or you can of course try Amazon or New England Comics site.

You want to get issues 1-12, either individually (current editions are a couple bucks a piece, older prints can rise quickly) or as anthologies (two of them, probably $25 or so for current editions of both). Later issues and the various spinoffs & colorized versions were generally inferior to the original series, so save them for later if you really get into the first ones.

The main exceptions to that rule of thumb are "Paul the Samurai", which was also written by Ben Edlund (at least the first issue or two -- don't remember if it went anywhere after that) and "Chainsaw Vigilante", which I think was by someone else but was still pretty funny (as a parody of Batman / Punisher type violent dark knight comics). Otherwise, stick to the originals, they're still the best...

You can still find them at your friendly neighborhood comic store, though the real gems are the first 12 issues, not the later runs with different writers / artists.

Or you can order them from the distributor (New England Comics) directly.

Oops, I meant:

Tick Antennae

Check these out: Tick Antennae

Before you start typing, you may want to read this May 2000 interview with Ben

That's what you should have done. It says in there:

At the beginning, I thought it would be good to have a kind of a CGI (computer-generated imagery) pair of eyes that more perfectly matched what was going on in the comic book design, the cartoon design. But first of all, the cost of that, for a series, you know maybe for a feature it would be fine, but for a series, is prohibitive.

This may have lead you to believe that they wouldn't have done computer-generated antennae. However, if that doesn't convince you...

We had to body cast Patrick Warburton, and build a giant rubber suit, and remote control antennae...

I hear a lot of people griping about the lack of Die Fleidermaus and American Maid. Well, they don't have the rights to those characters, since the Fox Kids TV Consortium (Saban and a few others) won't release them. According to an interview with Ben Edlund, the reason that they won't release them is...wait for it...they still want to make an animated Tick movie.

Now THAT would be cool.

The same interview also explained why the Tick in the TV series doesn't have the facemask of the comic. Apparenlty they tried several different permutations of the mask idea, but it always seemed to freeze the Tick's facial expression in one position. And on TV, a lot of acting comes from facial expressions (and Warburton doubly so) so they opened up the face. It ended up being simple TV logistics.

The interview is hiding out at newenglandcomics.com and it's a good read for all Tick fans.

Meanwhile, I thought BatManuel was hilarious. He gets the pompous womanizing essence of Die Fleidermaus but seems even more low-rent. And he made a Falco joke, which is always alright by me. Jury's still out on Captain Liberty, though.

okay, perhaps I should have dug through the NEC website a bit first. There is a page on the TV show which links to a statement from Tick creator Ben Edlund (who is in the credits while New England Comics is not).

Regarding the concerns of "Spooon" and certain key characters and copyright issues (as discussed in the above link here), Ben says that "the material from the cartoon series has passed into the ownership of interests outside this current endeavor."

Note that the statement was written back when the pilot was the only episode filmed and while Fox was still considering the show. The statement clears up a number of issues leaving only the lack of NEC and Christopher Lloyd in the credits.

okay, perhaps I should have dug through the NEC website a bit first. There is a page on the TV show which links to a statement from Tick creator Ben Edlund (who is in the credits while New England Comics is not).

Regarding the concerns of "Spooon" and certain key characters and copyright issues (as discussed in the above link here), Ben says that "the material from the cartoon series has passed into the ownership of interests outside this current endeavor."

Note that the statement was written back when the pilot was the only episode filmed and while Fox was still considering the show. The statement clears up a number of issues leaving only the lack of NEC and Christopher Lloyd in the credits.

okay, perhaps I should have dug through the NEC website a bit first. There is a page on the TV show which links to a statement from Tick creator Ben Edlund (who is in the credits while New England Comics is not).

Regarding the concerns of "Spooon" and certain key characters and copyright issues (as discussed in the above link here), Ben says that "the material from the cartoon series has passed into the ownership of interests outside this current endeavor."

Note that the statement was written back when the pilot was the only episode filmed and while Fox was still considering the show. The statement clears up a number of issues leaving only the lack of NEC and Christopher Lloyd in the credits.

unfortunately, the article you pointed to doesn't say any more than you did ... anybody know what issue is behind the sticky legal confliction that would allow the show but not certain key elements such as characters and catch-phrases?

Even more surprising is that the credits do NOT mention New England Comics, the creators of the Tick comic that the cartoon series was based on. Christopher Lloyd made a guest appearance on this premiere and also was not in the credits. eech!