The Tick
(Click for larger picture.)
My current favorite superhero is The Tick. He is a cartoon character and played on the Comedy Channel in the U.S. with his sidekick Arthur and several other superhero friends. His battle cry is "Spoon." He is so big that when he runs across the rooftops (his preferred mode of travel in the City), he cracks dents in them (probably causing major leaks) and doesn't jump from one to the other but just keeps running, putting gaps in parapets and knocking off cornices. What a guy!
The Tick was originally created as a paper comic by Ben Edlund. I don't have any of these comics, but would love to get some, as they are supposed to be pretty cool. In the meantime, the animated TV series will have to do. There was a live-action TV series for a short time, but the network mishandled it and it was cancelled after only 8 shows. Bleh. Anyway - onward... The character below left is Arthur. He was an accountant but wanted
adventure. Then he met Tick. Arthur wears a moth suit (not a bunny
suit - note the eyes) with a backpack in which are working wings.
The second picture is of Arthur and Die Fledermaus (not Deflator Mouse
- I think this is German for "Bat") Die Fledermaus tries to be cool and
stay out of trouble, instead of seeking it out as a crime-fighting superhero
normally would (he tends to faint when in danger - perhaps this is why
he has so much trouble getting a date, despite his buffness - or maybe
it's just the cheesy pick-up lines...). The third is Die Fledermaus, Sewer
Urchin and the Caped Chameleon. The Caped Chameleon can jump great distances
and stick where he lands and also change colors when needed (in one episode
he encounters plaid - everyone has his limits).
Here, the second picture is a close-up of Sewer Urchin. He's my favorite
after Tick and Arthur. He lives in and guards the sewer system, so he's
rather fragrant. But he also has this amazingly cool apartment. In the
audio clip, he's the one that says "Very bad." I like the way he talks.
(Die Fledermaus does most of the talking here, though.)
My favorite episode is "That Mustache Feeling" in which a mustache with
an agenda of its own - engineered in a lab by one of the superpowers during
the Cold War and now loose in the world at large and bouncing from host
to host at will - appears one morning on Tick's face. "The Tick vs. The
Uncommon Cold" - in which our hero must do battle with an evil monster
cloned from his own mucous - is good, too (though the gross-out factor
is pretty high). I'll say no more, but this show is a real treat if you've
never seen it.
Other Tick sites:
(Click for audio.) Comments? info@stonepylon.com
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