New England Comics Press
Creator: Ben Edlund
Release date: July 1996, according to Wikipedia, but mine is the second edition version, dated May 1998
This trade was a very fun read, and I was glad to finally read the Tick’s “true” comic origins as this volume collects the first six issues of the Tick’s comic adventures.
Note, I did not say this volume includes the Tick’s first appearances.
According to Wikipedia, the Tick was created in 1986 by an 18-year-old cartoonist named Ben Edlund as a mascot of sorts for his local comic book shop, New England Comics of Brockton, Mass., to use in its newsletter. Edlund later expanded his use of the Tick, beginning with a three-page origin story in which the character escapes from a mental institution. Unfortunately, that three-page tale is not included in this trade.
I’ve never seen that three-page origin myself. I don’t now and have never lived anywhere near Massachusetts. But I was aware of the Tick’s existence even without reading any of his early adventures. The Tick was like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in that regard; if you were a comics fan in the late 1980s and early 1990s, even if you’d never read any of their comics, you were aware of the characters. They quickly became that popular.
The Tick is a parody of the superhero genre, but unlike other parodies that poke fun at the genre in what often seems to be a mean-spirited and denigrating fashion, the Tick seems to be poking fun in a more good-natured way. Plus, the comic is funny!
If you don’t know anything about the character, the Tick is a heavily-muscled powerhouse in an all-blue bodysuit with a pair of prehensile antenna on top of his head. While his heart is clearly in the right place, the Tick is not the smartest tool in the shed. Although he does have moments of very keen insight amid the nonsense he typically spouts.
But again, I was aware of the character’s existence while never having read any of his comic adventures for the first 15 years of his existence. That changed in 2001 when Fox produced a live-action television series based on the character starring Patrick Warburton as the Tick. An earlier animated series had been produced by Fox in 1994 and lasted for three seasons, but I never watched that program. Sadly, this live-action series only lasted for a handful of episodes, but I thoroughly enjoyed every one of them.
In the pilot episode of the Patrick Warburton series, the Tick has sworn to protect a bus station. In this incarnation, the Tick only changes his focus to protecting his unnamed city after he is tricked into leaving the bus station by the station employees, who he continuously annoys. The show also starred David Burke as the Tick’s reluctant sidekick, Arthur; Nestor Carbonell as Batmanuel; and Liz Vassey as Captain Liberty.
I enjoyed the series so much, my family bought me the DVD collection when it was released, and thankfully, this DVD collection featured all of the episodes of the show, even the unaired ones.
In 2016, Amazon produced another series based on the Tick, and my family and I have watched and enjoyed both seasons of this series as well. This version of the live-action Tick starred Peter Serafinowicz as the Tick. In this version, Arthur was traumatized as a child, along with most of the city, by a supervillain known as the Terror. When the Tick arrives in the city, he befriends the now adult Arthur, and along with the help of Arthur’s sister, Dot, and another hero named Overkill, they vow to fight crime and evil throughout the city. While this version still had its comedy moments and characters, the action was taken much more seriously.
All of that brings us to this trade, The Naked City. I enjoyed the Fox television series so much, I wanted to try out the comics that inspired the show. But in a story by now familiar to regular readers of this blog, I tracked down a copy of the first trade, bought it and tossed it on the pile of books to read when I had the time. That’s why I’m just now trying out the collection. And while it is very different from either television program, it was still very good.
In this trade, the Tick arrives in the City looking for crime to thwart and adventures to enjoy. What he finds are a group of slightly incompetent ninjas threatening a young woman. Through the course of this adventure, the Tick briefly joins the staff of the Weekly World Planet newspaper and comes into conflict with another hero named The Caped Wonder. After a few misadventures with the staff at the newspaper, the Tick joins forces with Paul the Samurai to defeat the ninja empire. Along the way, Jack and Tick are joined by Arthur, who Tick later decides to take on as his sidekick.
Some of the humor comes from the obvious parodies of Superman and his supporting cast and later parodies of Elektra Natchios and the Hand from Daredevil comics in this tale. But most of the humor, as it should, comes directly from the Tick himself, from his obvious delusions about crimefighting, and from his seemingly inexplicable success despite his lack of true understanding in most situations. If you have a sense of humor about your love of comics, I think you’ll find much to enjoy in this trade collection.
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