Free Comic Friday: The Tick Free Comic Book Day 2011

The Tick: Free Comic Book Day 2011
“Book Tour”
Concept: Ben Edlund
Writer: Benito Cereno
Artist: Les McClaine
Publisher/Editor: George Suarez
Art Director: Bob Polio
Assistant Editor: Ralph Blaser
Released: May 7, 2011

I'd heard of the Tick here and there before he burst onto the Fox Saturday morning schedule in 1994 – September to be exact, so I guess this is a … 29^th anniversary appreciation post? That show made the character a part of my personal lexicon and delivered lines I still quote to this day, such as “You're not going crazy, Arthur. You're going sane in a crazy world.”

I also spent many hours on the Tick video game for the Sega Genesis, which was reminiscent of “Maximum Carnage” but more low key and a lot longer. Instead of screen-clearing allies like Captain America and Deathlok, you could fight back-to-back with the likes of Oedipus, Paul the Samurai and Die Fledermaus, although the latter would just protect his face while Tick did all the punching.

I remember being home from school either for a scheduled day off or sickness and getting further than I ever had on the game over the course of three hours – a little more than one-third of the way through it. Then I ran out of lives and continues. Whatever the advances in graphics, online play, complex stories, etc., etc., to me the greatest development in video games is being able to save rather than starting over from scratch every single time.

When presented with the opportunity to participate in the America Sings performance with our school's choir (I was in band but tagged along for the trip to New York) at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, a friend and I took our perceived 15 seconds of fame to shout the Tick's battle cry – “Spooooon!” – at an NBC camera.

That same friend got me the trade paperback of the Tick's first few issues, in color, as a gift, but I never bought that many Tick comics. I picked up an issue of the “Karma Tornado” limited series at some point and actually got a few issues of “Big Blue Destiny” as it was coming out, but somehow, this delightful blue buffoon* never dislodged me from my regular Marvel-DC habits.

When Free Comic Book Day rolls around, I always keep a lookout for the Tick entry. The oldest one I could find in my scattered collection is this one from 2011, which a note from Suarez on the inside cover says is the second. The first was a reprint of the first issue, and that's almost always a better choice than some random filler.

But although the story that leads this issue definitely qualifies as filler, it's also fun and serves as a fitting intro for the character profiles that follow. The issue is actually a preview of an upcoming edition of “The Tick's Circus Maximus,” sort of New England Comics' answer to the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe or DC's Who's Who. It features both characters I recognized from the cartoon...

… and ones I did not.

I love these kind of handbooks. For Marvel and DC, especially more recent entries, it's a way to put in context and chronological order a character's lengthy, complex and at times contradictory history. It also spells out their powers, abilities and stats, beyond the “whatever-the-story-calls-for” developments that are one of the things I love and also occasionally find frustrating about comics.

The introductory story gives us a quick tour of the Tick's home city, The City, and some of the characters featured in these sample handbook entries. It starts off when fellow heroes Running Guy and Portugese Man-of-War congratulate the Tick on his book deal – which is news to the Tick. He pulls Arthur away from a session of World at Risque: The Game of World Conqueration with Bumbling Bee and Rubber Ducky to track down the tome. He's not worried about copyright infringement. He wants to find out how the story ends.

This is weird and totally on-brand for the Tick.

After defeating roaming sewer mimes and walking past a variety of cameos, including the Man-Eating Cow, the Tick and Arthur come to a bookstore, whose cashier informs them that what they're looking for is a comic book. It's a mildly meta ending to a story that doesn't really go anywhere but delivers a few trademark Tick absurd laughs.

The character profiles – including six pages on the Tick himself – are fun reads, written in handbook style with a bit of the off-kilter Tick sensibilities. For example, “there are currently no known limits to the Tick's endurance. Getting tired is the hobgoblin of lesser minds.” And, as a longtime appreciater of puns, I was intrigued to meet Scarf Ace (below).

* - The Tick. My friend wasn't blue.