Naked Justice, Clothing Optional

A classic is quite the old fashioned feature, standing the test of time. Jane Eyre, that guy who wrote War and Peace, William Shakespeare, Stephen King, Joseph Heller and Ben Edlund.

But for most of you, you guys are not going to be familiar with Ben Edlund. Ben who? Philistines!!! All of you I say!! Unable to appreciate such classics of such things. What? You read Jane Eyre? Eyre must mean snore. Bah….But at least now let me educate you on the brilliance of Ben Edulnd.

Picture early nineties. A young 17…yes…17…I think….year old Ben Edlund who created, wrote and drew his own comic character, THE TICK!! SPOON! Yes you sweaty bastards. Ben Edlund is the guy who single handily created the big blue buffoon of justice loving and started such great things in life as his own animated TV show, regular live action show, continuing comic series and a whole spawned string of cheap merchandise which most have little or no value since it’s uselessness. Now I’ve loved the Tick since I was a kid. The idea of a funny superhero has always appealed to me. The more funnier to near psychotically lucid and dumb levels, the better and the Tick was no different. But the thing about The Tick is that his first and early incarnation was far superior to he later levels, much like our Merc with a mouth or even Web headed friendly neighborhood wall crawler. For you see, The Tick is now well known for his downplayed animated TV incarnation. It’s still so popular with fans that you know get all the artwork in the vein of the TV show. It still looks great but it gets a bit old since A) Nothing changes and B) Well…nothing changes. I didn’t need the B)

But the early artwork of the Tick was different. You can tell it was a bit of an amateur’s day out but it had a lot of promise. Edlund even at a young age had a great eye for framing events. One was probably the very first page of the Tick where he was seen in a straight jacket in an insane asylum. Yes. He was considered crazy. Like crazy in the Mark Millar Ultimate Thor kinda way. Not like you question if he’s a hero but you just don’t know much about him. It also has some dramatic parts where the introduces Paul the Samurai where he likes to frame him just like an anime character with extreme intense close ups during battle or when he’s angry or taking some kind of dump. I hope he’s not doing that while battle although it would be some excellent stratagem.

So I was at the bargain bin of the comic shop and slap me silly Betty White, I found a good copy of the first Tick collected edition.  Well secound priting but you get the idea.  So I swooped in like a condor getting it's food .  Although lacking the crisp style and look of the animated incarnation, Tick: Naked city does have it’s wacky level of fun and a sense of great pacing and dialogue. You’re introduced to Arthur, the Ticks moth sidekick but he doesn’t officially become his sidekick until near the end of the book. Hell you don’t even know much about him until the end of the book and it’s still a mystery. Edlund does make sure you know Arthur is fat. Not in the chubby Radar O’Reilly kind of way but more like long faced double chinned sort of way.. Even the Tick has a longer face in this one but not to near horse faced levels of….of….horsed faced people. I can’t think of anyone. Someone help me here. That seems to be a bit of a facial trademark for early Edlund. It’s not bad either cause it has a bit of a cartoony pulpiness to it. It’s also nice because the Tick’s butt chin is more played down the animated series.

The story and dialogue is where the Tick really shines. It’s not as well connected or well written as some of his later works on TV but it’s short and sweet stories with lots of funny bits poking at super heroes and some pop culture. Probably the funniest was when he ran into the caped wonder (Superman rip off) and the Tick tries to make friends with him. Another funny homage is Oedipus, who’s basically Elektra (google the names and you’ll get the joke). They’re both highly trained ninjas as well (with Oedipus training nearly 3 weeks!!) Although the cartoon series is still pretty faithful to the book, it lacks the dark edginess that really stood out My favorite splash page, and I think one of the greatest splash pages are what’s known as the nightmare buildings.

(I'll get teh image up asap)

That they are....

You see hereis when The Tick has a bout with reality when Oedipus gets stabbed by a ninja and is badly injured. The Tick is hardly able to cope with the harsh reality of what’s occurred and simply runs and jumps from building to building as he feels tortured by his own psyche. He even admits that he had a lucid moment. Simply put, I love this image. It’s so dark and personal yet with a tinge of comfort since it’s the colors and location give it a real sense of anguish and pain. I’m really sad that Edlund didn’t go on to do more artwork and that the series has taken a turn to the gimmicky but this image is still so breathtaking and so visceral that you have to wonder what it would’ve been like if the Tick stayed closer to its original roots.

To top it off you have moments of real unexpected bloodlust. One panel describes how Paul and the Tick really want to beat people up because they love the adventure and believe that’s how they solve all the problems since they are heroes. Luckily Arthur is there to talk sense into them and come up with an actual and more sane battle plan. This was a surprising twist. I knew the early version of the Tick was more prone to violence but this was just something that took me aback. Pleasantly I might add. The best way to understand the Tick’s personality is to summed up by the actor who played him in the live action show, the American treasure, Patrick Warburton, who said that the Tick is like a little kid where everything in the world is brand new to him so The Tick is basically like a kid and tires to solve things in a way a kid would see a superhero.

But the comic it takes it a step further because they take the Tick back to a more basic level where a kid would believe a superhero has to fight and be exciting to be effective. It’s a lot more fun to see then the rash of recent Tick comics of the past ten years where he’s just basically doing nothing. He donsn’t really fight or do much except say funny things and watch others get beat up. Grant it I havne’t read much of the past ten years but everytime I come back to the Tick, it’s the same story over and over again. Tick does nothing. Then someone else solves it or he solves it with a joke or something. Hardly any action occurs and even rarer moments of drama that break the gimmick wall of stifled creativity. Do I hate the newer series? No. I like my comics sometime with a touch of kid friendly hope or just relaxed funny. I still love the read the Justice League Unlimited books or Tiny Titans or Pet Avengers and the occasionally fattening Spider-Ham. But that’s like junk food. Candy. Can’t live on it forever and it’s just bad for you. I fucking need some real sustinence and dramatic meat to give me that mental protein to rise up, grow big and kick physical ass that if fueled by my rage and sharpens my scalpel type wit.

The book, although short, is in color which was not the case for the original printings. And it’s a nice job of color I might add.

The black and white for this dones’t quite work as well since the characters are not drawn for the best use of that medium. So the color adds so much more. Now if you’re a big fan of the Tick or just like a different change of pace, go read Tick: The Naked City. Or any other Ben Edlund Tick book for that instance. Also go watch some Edlund Episodes of Angel and Supernatural and Firefly. Those are always the best most memorable and hilarious episodes ever of any of those series. Don’t believe me? Let’s name off Puppet Angel, Giant Jayne Statue with the hero of Canton song and the whatever episodes of Supernatural he writes. Also don’t forget the Venture bros and Titan A.E. Yea yea. I don’t care though…Titan A.E. was the shit still. It’s a fucking cartoon for godsakes. Just go buy the Tick.