Ask Tick Creator Ben Edlund

The non-cartoon Tick debuted on Fox last night, so this is an ideal time to have Tick creator Ben Edlund as a Slashdot interview guest. Before you start typing, you may want to read this May 2000 interview with Ben to keep from duplicating questions and to see what kind of person he is. Then ask away. As usual, we'll send 10 of the highest-moderated questions to Ben, and publish his answers as soon as we get them back.

Re:Why the change?

[Rick the Red]

have[ing] [Bat Manuel and Captain Liberty] deeply in love with one another seems like a major switch.

Did you watch the same show I watched? They clearly are not deeply in love -- she broke his arm when he tried to reach "Third Base"! They are definately in lust, but she despises him and he only wants her for her body. He just wants all women for their bodies, which is probably why she despises him. I thought the two characters were good, although Bat Manuel's mask sucks. Was that painted on with mascara?

Re:Origins of "Spoooon!"

[quiller]

You should read the original comic books (by Ben Edlund). He does come up with it sitting around the dinner table with Arthur. He just thinks it is a neat word and would make a great battle cry.

The comic also contains the immortal line "Arthur, what this feast needs is Pez".

Re:Why the change?

[unclei]

The correct spelling is "die Fledermaus", and as other posters have pointed out, it means "the bat" in german. I also was dissapointed that his name was changed as well. I suspect it was changed to something more easily understood by most viewers...probably not a whole lot of the target audience are fans of the operas of Johann Strauss or speak german. The American Maid --> Captain Liberty thing has got me beat. American Maid was much funnier in my opinion. Perhaps they thought "American Maid" was too sexist for prime time? [metopera.org]

Re:Why the change?

[Golias]

How did your straw-grasping guesswork get modded up as "informative"!?

It is common knowledge to those who followed the development of the series that the new Tick show can only re-use characters from the original comic book. The characters made for the cartoon series (like Die Fledermaus and American Maid) can't be used. Ben Edlund obviously liked the dynamic of the characters, so he created similar ones with different names. Mystery solved.

But your theory about how they feared that a prime time audience would lack the sophistication of saturday morning cartoon watchers was certainly amusing.