Ben Edlund Goes From Supernatural To The Tick

The pilot for Ben Edlund’s The Tick will premiere this week on Amazon.com!

It is one of three pilots being released by Amazon and will have a chance to be picked up as a series. From ComingSoon.net

All Amazon customers are invited to stream and review the pilots in order to help choose the next Amazon Original Series that are then available to Prime members. The pilots will be available via the Amazon Video app for TVs, connected devices including Fire TV, and mobile devices, or online at Amazon.com/amazonvideo.

They also give us a synopsis of the series:

The Tick

In a world where superheroes have been real for decades, an underdog accountant with zero powers comes to realize his city is owned by a global super villain long-thought dead. As he struggles to uncover this conspiracy, he falls in league with a strange blue superhero. The Tick stars Peter Serafinowicz (Guardians of the Galaxy), Griffin Newman (“Vinyl”), Jackie Earle Haley (Watchmen), Valorie Curry (“House of Lies”), Yara Martinez (“Jane the Virgin”) and Brendan Hines (“Scorpion”). The Tick is executive produced by Ben Edlund (“Supernatural”), Barry Josephson (“Bones”) and Barry Sonnenfeld (“A Series of Unfortunate Events”), directed by Wally Pfister (The Dark Knight), and written by Edlund. The Tick is a co-production with Sony Pictures Television.

 

Tick’s Sidkick Arthur

WatchMojo created a guide to the origins of The Tick:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS69LuAs1nM

Nerdist  reports  on this new version:

 

The pilot for the new The Tick will premiere on August 19 on Amazon Prime as one of three pilots to hit the streaming service with the chance of getting picked up. To say nothing of how awesome the idea of a series based on the Wild Blue Yonder that isn’t hamstrung by network primetime rules, the pilot has some truly amazing talent attached including director Wally Pfister, the cinematographer of such films as The Dark Knight.

EmpireOnline interviewed Ben about the new project:

 

Ben Edlund, who created the character 30 years ago as a sort of mascot for comic book stores New England Comics, and who has overseen all previous incarnations of the character, is back guiding this version. He has written (and repeatedly rewritten) the pilot to give it a modern sensibility and a hoped-for built-in longevity by making this take far different from anything that’s come before. In this exclusive interview with Empire, Edlund reflects on the evolution of this version of The Tick.

The Tick was introduced in 1986 (from Wikipedia):

The Tick is a fictional character created by cartoonist Ben Edlund in 1986 as a newsletter mascot for the New England Comics chain of Boston area comic stores. He is an absurdist spoof of comic book superheroes. After its creation, the character spun off into an independent comic book series in 1988, and gained mainstream popularity through an animated TV series on Fox in 1994.

Our own Alice Jester has an autographed copy of the last edition of the Tick comic.

From Alice

Here it is, a picture of my original comic of The Tick #12, signed by Ben Edlund (Writer), Bob Polio (Letterer) and George Suarez (Editor).  It’s the last edition of the series.  In the back, there is a page written by Ben Edlund in which he talks about the Thirteenth issue, the issue that never happened!  Too bad, it sounded like it would be good.

This is not the first time The Tick has come to our television screens as a live action hero.

 

A short-lived live-action TV series, video game, and various merchandise have also been based on the character. 

From the Animated Series The Tick

Slashfilm gives us more details on the original show.

To back up a bit: the last The Tick live-action series was well liked by critics and fans, but struggled in the ratings at Fox and was axed after just 9 episodes. Nevertheless, in the 15 years since it aired, it’s gained enough of a cult following that this year, Amazon Studios ordered a pilot for a The Tick revival. Original series creator Ben Edlund got back on board, but with actor Patrick Warburton tied up with other commitments, Peter Serafinowicz was cast to fill the bright blue suit.

From the 2001 Series The Tick

This year Amazon decided to give The Tick another chance, this time on its streaming platform.  When the project was announced, Blaster reported:

From the animated series to comic books, The Tick has proven to have some legit staying power over the decades. Now he’s finally coming back to live action. But how will it differ from Fox’s short-lived (but beloved) attempt in 2001?

ScienceFiction.com also reported on the show.

As many ‘Tick’ fans already know, the cult favorite will be returning to the airwaves once more in the near future, though the show will look entirely different than the last time we saw it, with Peter Serafinowicz taking over the role of the titular hero from Patrick Warburton. According to creator Ben Edlund, it seems this time around they are also going for a tone that is a bit less slapstick, and he is hoping for around 50 episodes for the show, if Amazon will allow them to make that many. Story-wise they are also going in a new direction, choosing to have the Tick’s sidekick Arthur actually be the protagonist of the show, working to undercover a conspiracy that will encompass a lot of the show’s characters.

Entertainment Weekly talked with the producer of both series about this project.

Fifteen years ago, Fox canceled The Tick after just nine episodes; the series garnered an average of 4 million-plus viewers each week — a figure that was disastrous at the time but would not be totally unwelcome in today’s landscape. (Last week’s Scandal earned 6.1 million viewers for ABC, and 3.74 million viewers tuned into the Morris Chestnut-led Rosewood on Fox.)

“I said at the time [that] the network didn’t necessarily get it,” says Barry Josephson, an executive producer on the original Tick as well as the upcoming reboot. “And I don’t know that we were doing exactly the version that was right, but we were happy with it.

Io9 explains Why The New Version of The Tick Is Going to Be So Different.

 

I can hum the Tick theme song from the cartoon too but I won’t. But as you were saying, you’ve gone through at least three different instances where it’s like, “OK, it’s being adapted. It’s going to hit a larger audience.” Then it stops. Then, OK, somebody else is expressing interest. Were you at all hesitant to get back on the merry-go-round this time?

Edlund: Yes, for sure. The previous live-action [adaptation] was really physically and emotionally difficult because of the budgeting and it was just very ambitious. We were never on top of our own system of getting it done. So it was all overtime. All 20-hour days. Just really grueling. That had an effect. It made me trepidatious from the perspective of what it would take, number one.

Each time one goes back and looks at this again to try and do it, you are messing with what already works, culturally. I think that with the superheroes, it would be almost like not doing your sit-ups to not have a reinvention every 10 years.

As part of his promotion of The Tick, Ben will be attending Wizard World in Chicago, which runs from August 18-21.

 

Heads up fandom – the amazing @ben_edlund is headed to @WizardWorld in Chicago ! https://t.co/QGNCdSPKnE

— Supernatural Wiki (@SuperWiki) August 13, 2016

TRUE — we will screen the pilot there! https://t.co/9FoF9DzJOk

— ben_edlund (@ben_edlund) August 13, 2016

Jenny Klein is cheering him on.

From @ben_edlund‘s eye holes to yours! #TheTick https://t.co/iM5ssPfgm3

— Jenny Klein (@jennydelherpes) August 8, 2016

 

You don’t need to be a member to watch & vote … This experiment in democracy is free for 30 days! #TheTick https://t.co/C8uMU4sXWb

— ben_edlund (@ben_edlund) August 19, 2016

If you miss Ben Edlund’s sense of humor or his writing and you have access to Amazon Prime, give The Tick a look starting August 19. Help Ben get his series off the ground! It’s so wonderful when our alumni succeed on other projects! After one animated series and a second live series, let’s hope the third time is the charm! I think it looks great.