Source (purchased/given/borrowed/the wife's): purchased
Date Purchased: July 2007
Original Review: N/A
Thoughts/Memories/ Remembrances: I remember seeing advertisements for The Tick in the comics I bought when I started visiting a local comics shoppe in 1991. "Ninjas," the Tick said, "I hate ninjas", as he trudged across the panel with a dozen men in black suits about half his size futilely attacking him, Tick obviously feeling none of their attack thanks to his nigh-invulnerability. That panel from the ad for NEC's mail-order service has stuck with me to this day, I didn't actually read an issue of The Tick until 2 years later when Chroma Tick #1 came out (reprinting the first issue but in color). I recall enjoying it, and yet, for some reason, that's the only comic starring the Tick I'd purchased for some time.
I managed to let the cartoon bypass me, having only ever watched a handful of episodes from it's original Fox airings, and it really wasn't until the Patrick Warburton-fueled live-action series that I developed a deep appreciation for the character... something the Tick comic lovers and/or cartoon lovers tell me is blasphemy. Within the past year and a half, I've managed to read the first of three trade paperbacks of the Tick, a result of the merging of collections with the wife, and watched the DVDs of The Tick (seasons 1 and 2). My appreciation for the big blue bug is at an all-time high. Looking at the order form in the back of the 20th Anniversary Special Edition (June 2007) and I realize I've barely tapped the Tick's comic book repertoire, a solution that was fixed by acquiring these first two Karma Tornado collections at the 2007 San Diego Comic Con. One geekdom obsession translated to another since I knew these were written by Venture Brothers co-creator Chris McCulloch (under the pseudonym Jackson Publick).
Date Purchased: July 2007
Original Review: N/A
Thoughts/Memories/ Remembrances: I remember seeing advertisements for The Tick in the comics I bought when I started visiting a local comics shoppe in 1991. "Ninjas," the Tick said, "I hate ninjas", as he trudged across the panel with a dozen men in black suits about half his size futilely attacking him, Tick obviously feeling none of their attack thanks to his nigh-invulnerability. That panel from the ad for NEC's mail-order service has stuck with me to this day, I didn't actually read an issue of The Tick until 2 years later when Chroma Tick #1 came out (reprinting the first issue but in color). I recall enjoying it, and yet, for some reason, that's the only comic starring the Tick I'd purchased for some time.
I managed to let the cartoon bypass me, having only ever watched a handful of episodes from it's original Fox airings, and it really wasn't until the Patrick Warburton-fueled live-action series that I developed a deep appreciation for the character... something the Tick comic lovers and/or cartoon lovers tell me is blasphemy. Within the past year and a half, I've managed to read the first of three trade paperbacks of the Tick, a result of the merging of collections with the wife, and watched the DVDs of The Tick (seasons 1 and 2). My appreciation for the big blue bug is at an all-time high. Looking at the order form in the back of the 20th Anniversary Special Edition (June 2007) and I realize I've barely tapped the Tick's comic book repertoire, a solution that was fixed by acquiring these first two Karma Tornado collections at the 2007 San Diego Comic Con. One geekdom obsession translated to another since I knew these were written by Venture Brothers co-creator Chris McCulloch (under the pseudonym Jackson Publick).
Re-Review:: It's weird because the Tick, although a very specific character, is still relatively amorphous, not clearly defined in terms of consistency in how he acts. At times he's a bumbling fool, others he's pretty clear headed, and others he's silly but almost knowingly so. Sometimes it's like the Tick is oblivious of his surroundings and other times he's fully aware of his situation. What started off as a rather innocent superhero parody has now become an empire and an entity altogether its own, and it's depending on the medium and the writer that will spell out how the Tick ultimately acts.
The brainchild of Ben Edlund, his creator saw him through a dozen comic books, three dozen cartoon episodes, and not quite a dozen live-action television episodes. Now, two decades on, he's relatively successful TV writer and producer, Edlund has long left the comics in other peoples' hands, and most of them manage to capture the spirit of The Tick but rarely the character himself. One of those hands, back in 1997, was Chris McCulloch (according to wikipedia, he was hand-picked (pun!) by Edlund himself), who took up some notes from Edlund and wrote the first four issues of Karma Tornado. Aside from being snazzy, I'm not certain the title had any thematic relevance to the stories.
Issues 1 and 2 find Tick teleported to a remote planet where he and the representatives of Earth (which include George Washington Carver, Imhotep and a T-Rex) compete against other interplanetary competitors in "Challenge of the Champions". The challenges are, of course, silly, including ant wrestling and a three-legged race. The bigger challenge facing Tick is the coordination of his Team, and the fact that he's easily distracted.
When the Challenge is over (in issue 3), Tick is meant to be teleported back home, only something (naturally) goes wrong, and his nigh-invulnerable self is left floating in space. There he meets the first chimp to ever be rocketed into space, now insanely smart and intelligibly verbal. The chimp takes him to meet Nigh-Omnipotus where he soon finds himself duped into being the gigantic celestial creature's herald (blatant spoofing of Galactus and the Silver Surfer).
How will the Tick ever escape such an immense being's enslavement and return home? Well, we'll never know since Edlund poached McCulloch to writer for the cartoon. The resolution to the story is left hanging and issue five, by Clay Griffith, ignores the previous story completely, moving forth with a done-in-one story of tick joining a league of bizarre crimefighters, much to Arthur's chagrin. The sixth story find an egregious senator badmouthing superheroes, which Tick naturally takes exception to. The Tick faces not just a political struggle outside his depth, but superhuman apes and, gah!, the press.
Neither McCulloch nor Griffith is quite as Tick-capable as Edlund, but then no one would be able to usurp the character's creator. Moreover, the art, by Bill Neville, Dave Garcia, Alan Hopkins and McCulloch himself aren't really of the same clean line, cartoony style as Edlund. Hopkins' work does clean up well on the sixth story, though, and does feel more Tick-like.
In McCulloch's stories he shows he understands the rhythm of the book, the oddball nature of its storytelling including its spoofing of other comic book characters. It's nearly up to the level of his television but it's still entertaining. His Tick seems to have a short attention span, which is another way of presenting his bizarreness. Had he completed his Nigh-Omnipotus story, I would say it was a successful entry into Tick lore, unfortunately it's abrupt non-ending leaves it a little less than satisfactory. The subsequent issues, with better art but less engaging stories, weren't of as much interest too me, but they're decent if uninspiring on their own.
Rating (keep/sell/undecided): undecided
The brainchild of Ben Edlund, his creator saw him through a dozen comic books, three dozen cartoon episodes, and not quite a dozen live-action television episodes. Now, two decades on, he's relatively successful TV writer and producer, Edlund has long left the comics in other peoples' hands, and most of them manage to capture the spirit of The Tick but rarely the character himself. One of those hands, back in 1997, was Chris McCulloch (according to wikipedia, he was hand-picked (pun!) by Edlund himself), who took up some notes from Edlund and wrote the first four issues of Karma Tornado. Aside from being snazzy, I'm not certain the title had any thematic relevance to the stories.
Issues 1 and 2 find Tick teleported to a remote planet where he and the representatives of Earth (which include George Washington Carver, Imhotep and a T-Rex) compete against other interplanetary competitors in "Challenge of the Champions". The challenges are, of course, silly, including ant wrestling and a three-legged race. The bigger challenge facing Tick is the coordination of his Team, and the fact that he's easily distracted.
When the Challenge is over (in issue 3), Tick is meant to be teleported back home, only something (naturally) goes wrong, and his nigh-invulnerable self is left floating in space. There he meets the first chimp to ever be rocketed into space, now insanely smart and intelligibly verbal. The chimp takes him to meet Nigh-Omnipotus where he soon finds himself duped into being the gigantic celestial creature's herald (blatant spoofing of Galactus and the Silver Surfer).
How will the Tick ever escape such an immense being's enslavement and return home? Well, we'll never know since Edlund poached McCulloch to writer for the cartoon. The resolution to the story is left hanging and issue five, by Clay Griffith, ignores the previous story completely, moving forth with a done-in-one story of tick joining a league of bizarre crimefighters, much to Arthur's chagrin. The sixth story find an egregious senator badmouthing superheroes, which Tick naturally takes exception to. The Tick faces not just a political struggle outside his depth, but superhuman apes and, gah!, the press.
Neither McCulloch nor Griffith is quite as Tick-capable as Edlund, but then no one would be able to usurp the character's creator. Moreover, the art, by Bill Neville, Dave Garcia, Alan Hopkins and McCulloch himself aren't really of the same clean line, cartoony style as Edlund. Hopkins' work does clean up well on the sixth story, though, and does feel more Tick-like.
In McCulloch's stories he shows he understands the rhythm of the book, the oddball nature of its storytelling including its spoofing of other comic book characters. It's nearly up to the level of his television but it's still entertaining. His Tick seems to have a short attention span, which is another way of presenting his bizarreness. Had he completed his Nigh-Omnipotus story, I would say it was a successful entry into Tick lore, unfortunately it's abrupt non-ending leaves it a little less than satisfactory. The subsequent issues, with better art but less engaging stories, weren't of as much interest too me, but they're decent if uninspiring on their own.
Rating (keep/sell/undecided): undecided