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Ask Tick Creator Ben Edlund
The non-cartoon Tick debuted on Fox last night, so this is an ideal time to have Tick creator Ben Edlund as a Slashdot interview guest. Before you start typing, you may want to read this May 2000 interview with Ben to keep from duplicating questions and to see what kind of person he is. Then ask away. As usual, we'll send 10 of the highest-moderated questions to Ben, and publish his answers as soon as we get them back.
now that we're all aware of the still-pending copyright issues between Sony and Fox concerning certain Tick characters and trademarks ("Spoon!"), is there any hope in sight for a resolution that would allow the use of these copyrights? Or is this a totally dead issue?
What type of drugs/alcohol were you high on when you created the character and premise of the tick? ;-)
Also, is the tick more of a boxer, brief, or boxer-brief man?
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
As an American and a fan living overseas, will this show be available on any UK/Irish stations? Where might I see it if I'm living in Ireland?
Whatever happened to JonKatz?
I read some time ago that, at a convention, you had admitted that The Tick started out as a character in a Superhero Role Playing Game. Of course, they failed to say (or perhaps you didn't tell them) which game! So which was it? Champions? V&V? Superworld? Marvel Super Heroes? Do any of the other "standard" Tick Universe characters come from the game? Do you still play?
First of all, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for this soliloquay:
"So the mustache was in love. Oh, that's cool. Love is cool. That mustache is cool. But it didn't make me cool. It made Sewer Urchin swing ten miles by his upper lip!"
"And look at Jim Rave. He should have been cool. He had a cool eye patch, cool RV, cool gadgets, and he traveled the world with three vivacious, exciting, talented beauticians. That's cool! But he wasn't cool."
"You know, Arthur, I may have lost my mustache, but I've gained... heh... I haven't gained a thing."
As for the question... Comic book hero farce as a genre doesn't exactly have a huge tradition. Where did you draw most of your inspiration from?
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Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
What evil Fox executive stuck you in such a lethal timeslot? Why didn't they slot you behind the Simpson's then move you to the lethal Thursday timeslot?
I had to fight with my girlfriend to watch the show last night since 'Will and Grace' was on.
Why do a live version when the cartoon series didn't last that long?
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
Are you satisfied with the finished product of the live action Tick? I was a huge fan of both the comic and the cartoon series and am sure that if you can keep up the quality of dialog and acting you had in last night's episode that I'll be glued to it as well. But the differences between the three are immense...especially in the humour department (for example, my favorite joke from the comic was "We are hedge. Move along." which probably wouldn't work in either the cartoon or the live action). Do you, as the characters' creator and a comic artist, find yourself looking at the finished product and saying, "yes, that's what I see when the Tick jumps along the rooftops of my dreams?" Which of the three incarnations is your favorite?
Hey freaks: now you're ju
I noticed that Deflator Mouse and American Maid had been changed to Batman-uel and "Captain Liberty". Why the change from the animated series? Those characters and their rivalry were a great side story, and to use similar characters but have them deeply in love with one another seems like a major switch.
"Shared pain is lessened; shared joy is increased. Thus we refute entropy" - Spider Robinson
Patrick Warburton was absolutely perfect as The Tick, Nestor Carbonell was great as Batmanuel, Liz Vassey as Captain Liberty and David Burke was a great fit as Arthur. Since these shows were originally filmed in 2000, will this cast be preserved? Is there any plan to do a 1 hour show or movie? It was fun to watch, and just because of the beer!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Sometimes they seemed remote control, sometimes they seemed computer generated.
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
Will we ever see the 'origins' of The Tick?
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
Tick, to my mind, is an ideal hero icon for the current generation. He has good intentions, but isn't too aware of the fine details (well, even some gross details) of the world around him. He tries hard, and things tend to work out after a fashion, but usually not as a result of any particular brilliance on his part. Tick fulfills the iconic image of style over substance, of good intentions versus understanding, of the brawn and machismo not directed by a terribly powerful cranium, and of accidental destruction as a consequence of his good intentions and bungling execution.
His sidekick Arthur, of course, is more down to earth and aware. He's a bit of a geek (though I have yet so see him hack a kernel) with less-than-stellar social skills. He too seems to fill an iconic image in modern-day society - the nerdy brains-behind the brawn.
When these characters evolved, were they merely an attempt to poke fun at Superhero archetypes, or were they consciously intended to be more "in touch" with and to more closely parallel today's society? Or do you consider such analysis to be far deeper than the subject matter merits? Is the Tick just good humored fun, or is it perceptive art?
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
It seems the relationship between The Tick and Arthur is similar to the one between Don Quixote and Sancho. Is this intentional, or merely reflecting the influence that book has had on "buddy" motifs in literature? Finally, have you considered a plot line involving invisible giants that only The Tick can see so that when Arthur is urged to join in battle against them, he can utter "What giants?"
Given Fox's track record of hyping up incredibly gimicky or out-of-place shows (Alien Autopsy and Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire come to mind) while simultaneously burying shows that have real potential (Family Guy, for instance), how concerned are you that Fox will simply bury you after one unsuccessful (or successful) season?
Was Sewer Urchin the casualty of the intellectual-property fight, or was he removed because of political correctness? There are equivalent characters to American Maid and Die Fledermaus, but no bizarro Sewer Urchin. Was it just too much to have a autistic live-action hero on primetime?
Robotiq.com is heavily tested on animals
Why were the costumes for the Tick and Arthur so different from the cartoon / comic (which I loved, BTW)? In particular, the Tick's eyes are not covered and Arthur's outfit doesn't look the same at all. Having a mask is a big part of being a super hero!
Will we see:
The evil midnight bomber?
Pineapple Pocopo?
The civic minded 5?
Hang 10 for justice!
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
So, now that you have your show, I'm curious:
Congratulations on your success, from a fellow southeastern Mass person... :)
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
I know that you folks are looking for writers and reading through scripts...
Are you accepting scripts still?
I have a couple of scripts that I was working on back in the days when the animated series was running, and I'd like to know if people can still submit them, and if so, submit them exactly where?
(oh, and also, is there any chance that we might see Speak appear?)
Judging from the first episode alone, it seems like the live-action Tick is automatically shooting for an older audience than the cartoon was (for perhaps obvious reasons). Arthur getting drunk, The Tick using the word "bitch," some of Batmanuel's references to Captain Liberty, etc. I always got the feeling from the cartoon that it was aimed at both adults and kids, with some jokes perhaps flying over the kids' heads while the adults would get them (a snake accusing The Tick of not dating much during a wrestling match in The Tick vs. Proto-Clown comes to mind).
Will the live-action series be aimed more at adults and less at younger viewers? I'm not really complaining if that is the case, it just seemed like there was definitely a shift in tone.
Lyme Disease ... your feelings about?
Do you feel guilty that the women portrayed in your cartoons are 1 dimensional pin-up girls while the male characters are given more depth? Can a woman be a super hero if she does not have big breasts that look good in spandex?
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
I used to be an avid Tick and PTS fan. Collected them and Milk And Cheese, that about covers the comics I actually found amusing. The Tick was great because it wasn't so horribly cynical and angry as Dorkin's (Milk and Cheese) work, but was almost as funny. Then at some point the Tick stopped being funny. Man Eating Cow, Karma Tornado, all the spin-offs besides Paul The Samurai were terrible from the beginning. I never could figure out why this was.
Did you break with NEC at some point, leaving the Tick and Paul the Samurai series to be written by somebody else? The first dozen or so Ticks were hysterical, as was the first Paul the Samurai, and then everything dissipated. (the original Tick cartoon show was pretty funny, but nowhere near as good as the comic book)
I don't collect comics anymore (gave them all to my little brother) but I did enjoy the Tick and M&C. M&C lost a lot of its punch after a while, maybe everyone runs out of material, but it seemed like much more of an abrupt transition with the Tick, and I was wondering what happened. Also I hope you're back for good, some of my college friends had never heard of the Tick and really got hooked on it after I dug out some old issues of the comic. The comics were great stuff.
"Unnecessary Rockets: On/Off"
Remember that what's inside of you doesn't matter because nobody can see it.
Why do a live version when the cartoon series, given the Live-Action Tick's timeslot, would of been a better choice? I mean, I enjoyed the cartoon series. No amount of live-action + special effects is going to be up to the same.
Also, don't you think the Power Rangers series should of been animated for it's own sake, instead of live action?
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
Do find being on Fox to be a potential downfall? It seems like a lot of semi-decent shows ("Family Guy") get killed and resurrected fairly often on the network.
When will the cartoon series Tick be available on DVD?
> Is it tasteful or even possible to humorously
> depict Evil Masterminds so soon after a
> chilling reminder of real evil?
I will take my licks if readers of this response feel the need to mod me down, but I need to be clear that this is not intended as a troll:
SCREW YOU! People like you who think that any depiction of anything other then fluffy puppy dogs on TV is inappropriate are continuing the work of the terrorists!
Every time some good for nothing self appointed censor says 'Uh, maybe that is not so tasteful right now.... please think of the children.' and changes stuff to make it less 'scary' or defangs humor to deal with 9/11 they are helping keep our country down!
Get a fucking clue, goddamnit! If we have ANY chance to get back to normal, and ANY chance to defiantly tell the people who hate us that we will not be defeated, we NEED things that violate your precious little ideal of 'tasteful'.
You are part of the problem. Fix that.
(once again, I am not posting this as AC because I strongly feel this way. If you are a moderator who feels the need to mod this down because I used 'bad words', go ahead if it makes you feel better. I'm willing to sacrifice my 50 Karma to prove that I am serious.)
As you and others were developing The Tick into a live action series, (after watching the first live action episode) you seem to be trying to return to the style of the comic book rather than the animated series. To that end, some things probably weren't appropriate for TV, like having the Tick escape from an insane asylum in the pilot. Other things were created to make the show more appropriate for a tv audience - more character development and making them seem more like "real" people (jobs, cell phones, drinking at the bar, etc.).
How much did you have to give and take between making the live action have content appropriate for tv (ie network censors), adding plot elements and characters to make it appropriate for a (potentially) long running tv series, fighting the cartoon copyright issues, and adapting it to suit your vision of the Tick on tv? Also, what would you like to do with the show that you can't on tv?
thanks
t.
"Corrupting our youth one mind at a time"
Ever since I first heard the battle cry of The Tick, I always wondered, "How did these guys come up with the idea?"
I tried to visualize the circumstances which brought forth the famous Tick line, and always end up picturing some semi-intoxicated discussion over battle cries during dinner, then someone started holding up utensils.
So, how did it happen? What were the circumstances? What were the alternative/runner-up battle cries?
(if you say, "chopstick & spork", you'll get me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.)
-Dennis
While I'm a big fan of the Tick and enjoyed the show last night, I found one thing discordant while watching it. The Tick using words like bitch, and gonads. He has always struck me as having very anachronistic language. Stuck back in the Father Knows Best days. Spreading his brand of creamy justice on the toast of the city, sure. Make Evil my Bitch, doesn't work for him. Borderline profanity might work for some of the other characters, particularly Bat Manuel, but it seems wrong for the well intentioned, but naive hero that is the Tick. Is this a direction they are trying to take the Tick for some reason, or just a matter of unfamiliarity with the characters that will be ironed out over time?
Actually, 2.
First, I thought Batmanuel was hilarious. I hope Captain Liberty becomes more clearly a right-wing reactionary, because I think that would make her character much more interesting. Yesterday she just seemed like a girl who couldn't say no and mean it -- which wasn't that interesting, IMO.
Second, I first encountered The Tick at a wedding.
It was the best wedding cake-top decoration I have ever seen, and featured The Tick and a Wonder Woman. They were in completely different scales, so The Tick was twice as tall as Wonder Woman, which worked fabulously as the couple getting married were a 6'6" man and a 4'11" woman. The Tick, of course, was in his regular uniform, but they managed to glue a tiny tulle veil onto Wonder Woman's head.
Liza
These opinions are my own. My employer is not aware of them, does not endorse them, and is not responsible for them.
Perhaps, but please note that I did not ask not to be modded down.
In regards to the... heartfelt exclamations... they are very efficient and compact ways of expressing an opinion. In the interest of efficiency, if I can summarize a 250 word treatise with 'screw you!', I've performed an incredible bit of optimization.
I wish I still had my first Tick comic. It was a freebie from New England Comics, announcing that they were going to try publishing their own comics. I thought it pretty decent, but had to make more strategic decisions in my collecting habits at the time. Sorry Ben, I just had to have Akira. Fast forward a few years and suddenly I see the tick everywhere. So my question is this: Where did you think this comic would end up way back at issue one? Were you jsut hoping to have some good stuff in your portfolio by the time you got out of college(or wherever)? Were you hoping for a moderately successful underground classic? Just when did you realize that the Tick was a big hit? What happened then in your life and how did it affect your creation(the comic as well as the character)?
Most people probably don't realize that the Tick is a direct adaptation of the "Roach" superhero parody character from Dave Sim's Cerebus. Do you still keep up with Cerebus despite the fact that the Roach (and his attendant humor) have been missing from the story for 100 or so issues now? What do you think of how Cerebus has unfolded? Has Dave Sim, a notorious hater of the television medium, given you any grief over the new series?
'cuz it sure ain't reading.
1) It wasn't the machine I found ridiculous and dated--in fact, the machine (and the concept) were very funny. It was the villians themselves. They weren't even remotely funny--it was like watching re-runs of the Batman TV show as put on by a high school drama team.
2) Of course I don't expect them to play with fluffy bunnies. In fact, I thought Apocalypse Cow was side-splittingly funny. You see, I'm not *objecting* to anything. I'm asking if it is possible to have a prime-time show featuring jokes Evil Masterminds when so many people have just switched over from the evening news featuring the real thing.
324006
Where did you come up with The Tick's world famous battle cry?
They really didn't do anything for the show. Maybe its because, at some level, I am comparing them to 2 certain other animated Tick heros.
Since you have to change the heros anyway why not go for a good batman and wonder woman parody?
It seems the potential for humor there is far greater then the 2 sex starved morons they seem to be.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I am terribly offended at your characterization of the honorable President George W. Bush as a bumbling idiot with good intentions. I think the record clearly shows his total lack of good intentions.
(Man, I was totally unimpressed by The Tick last night. Didn't laugh once, and would have changed the channel after a few minutes but I really hoped it would get better. Family Guy was great though!)
Here's my questions...
As the creator / executive producer / high goddess of all that is Tick-y, what would be the one thing you wish to be done with the new live action show? Guest appearances? (BTW, nice shot of you and Barry on the couch) Better special effects? Hot dog cut into a little octopus?
And second, since it appears that characters from the cartoon exclusively will not be appearing due to copyright issues, can you give us a brief list of those that might appear from the comic? Chairface Chippendale? Chainsaw Vigilante? Paul the Samurai? Man Eating Cow?
Thanks for making Thurday night TV watchable again.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
To me, the Tick was always a satire of his genre. You made fun of Batman, Wonder Woman, Galactus, etc., etc. My question would be: With the series moving to live-action TV, would you be satiring other things? Making fun of Galactus would go over the heads of most your audience. However, targetting Friends or Survivor would surely hit the spot. (Survivor especially, given your current time slot.) Where is the comedy and the storyline going to come from?
Where the wind blows, the tumbleweed goes.
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...
PUBLIC SPLIT ON WHETHER BUSH IS A DIVIDER -CNN scrolling banner, 10/15/2004
Often, when a genre begins producing self-mocking works, it's a sign that there is little life left in it. Witness the effect Scream had on the horror genre, or, more relevantly, the effect of Watchmen on modern comics. Do you think there is still room left in the world for classic superhero stories?
So can I be on your show, or what?
:)
How much creative control do you have, and how much will you maintain, if the show is a success?
I have firsthand experience with the idiocy of networks, so I'd be very interested to hear how you pitched the idea.
I'd also like you to know that I have been a fan from issue number 1, and used to curse your being in college, and not being able to put out new issues. Paul the Samurai is one of my favorite characters, in any medium, of all time.
umm, dood, futurama is the same genious as old Simpsons. The good writers left Simpsons to work on Futurama. Its the same stuff.
I doubly-recant any prior anti-Wesleyan diatribes...
Dude, you have it all wrong.
Peace...
I am quite civilized, and I should be brought a beer immediately. -- Bruce Sterling
I was thrilled when Titan AE came out and two of the three script writers were the creators of my absolute favorite TV shows. That's you, and Joss Whedon of Buffy fame.
7 31.html
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I was surprised when I eventually saw the movie and found very little of that creative genius making any imprint in the final product. Later I've seen Joss talk about how writers are treated as crap in Hollywood, as opposed to TV where they're pretty powerful. "[about Atlantis] The movie they made has nothing to do with that treatment, but I'm happier having my name on that movie than on Titan A.E."
So to get to the question, do you have any commment on Hollywood writing as opposed to TV, the Titan AE experience, or working with Joss Whedon (if you did). If you can't really answer honestly for fear of insulting powerful showbiz moguls, signal it by using a lot of fish and poultry references in your answer.
For reference: here is the full Whedon interview
http://avclub.theonion.com/avclub3731/avfeature_3
http://avclub.theonion.com/avclub3731/avfeature_3
the work of the terrorists!
Ah-ha! So that's where all that anthrax is coming from! Come on, guys, let's get him!
Seriously, the shrill tone of people saying "don't change anything about our cynical, shallow culture or the terrorists will have won," are really getting on my nerves. If you want to defeat terrorism, you do what our government is doing: Find where they are hiding and turn each of them into a fine red spray. Repeat process until you run out of hostile targets.
I promise you that bin Laden does not give a flying fuck about what jokes Ellen came up with durring the Emmy Awards. The Al Quida network never had the goal of making sure there were fewer irreverent jokes about NYC on late night talk shows.
So no, changing our culture does not mean the terrorists won. It means that we are responding to a crisis with an understandable measure of caution and seriousness. Pulling all western presense out of the Middle East and dissolving the state of Israel... now that would mean the terrorists won.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
the Tick stopped being funny. Man Eating Cow, Karma Tornado, all the spin-offs besides Paul The Samurai were terrible from the beginning. I
never could figure out why this was.
Two words: Ben Edlund.
He created the tick, along with the 12 brilliant original issues.
Then, he started developping the cartoon series, and didn't have time. (His pace for the last few issues was agonizingly slow to begin with.)
So New England Comics, to keep up with the demand, created two spin-offs and started a new Tick series, all with different writers. Some of it was okay, but none of it really measured up to the original, or even succeeded in capturing the tone of Edlund's writing.
Edlund went on to do a lot of writing on the cartoon, and later created the new series. He has not done a Tick comic since issue 12 was released in May of 1993.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Please Ben, bite the hand that feeds you.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
I know you get asked this with every Tick project that you do, but here it is again: are you guys open to the idea of redoing The Night of the Million Zillion Ninjas for the live action series? That story line was always the cornerstone of The Tick in my mind. I think it would work well in the live action. And since, in the previous interview, you mentioned that you might bring Paul the Samurai into the live action series, NofMZN seems like the perfect way to do it.
-- Nolite audere delere orbiculum rigidum meum.
Don't feed the trolls
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Last year, you said "the pilot is just kind of the beginning or like the tip of the iceberg in terms of how stupid and odd we could get, and that would be intriguing for a while, because prime time has a higher profile, wider range, kind of exposure."
Now that the series is in full production, how much of that remains true? Is anybody (at Fox, or at Sonnenfeld's prduction co) putting on the brakes?
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07