Archaeologists of the Impossible Meet Nigh Invulnerable Spoon!

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Special delivery! Oh, Arthur! The thrill of modern postism!

This seemed like the too good to be true theme for someone of Matt Kindt’s talents. Warren Ellis and Jon Cassady’s Planetary is not only one of my favorite comics ever, it’s one of my favorite genre experiences partaken. Rather fitting for a book that so sublimely experimented with, or rather, traversed genre. In doing so, Planetary collided with several familiar speculative fiction entities during its run, and I thought it would be great to have a commission depicting a scene of the team running into The Tick, a character that simultaneously played what quickly became the ideal adventures of a superhero while absurdly spoofing the genre. A meeting between a superhero comic book’s comic book and  a panel of post-Human curiosity on them and their pulp heritage.

My first experience with The Tick was through the animated series, a must watch for my not at all socially awkward high school crew that, looking back, really had no ties to comics. Indeed, I doubt anyone knew it was based on a comic (very much the same as TMNT in that regard, though revisionist historians would try to convince you otherwise.) The Tick was a great show, one rituals were made of. I remember for a period of time all of us congregating at a friend’s house to watch it every weekend, usually before we’d roll out to the courts to play some ball.

For the uninitiated, Ben Edlund, the creator of The Tick,  later went on to write and/or producer episodes of transgeek cool shows like Supernatural, Firefly, Angel, Venture Brothers, and Clone Wars.

I miss The Tick and just love that Matt Kindt was, for a moment, not only able to bring him back for me as part of my collection, but was also able to append him to the  future fictional explorers of a genre that he was a short but most memorable footnote in. While just recently getting to the Bendis and Oeming series Powers, I for some reason kept waiting for The Tick to appear among the choice guest gallery. Maybe he does in issues not yet read, but for now, Kindt’s depiction of The Tick giving the spoon to Drummer, Jakita Wagner and Elijah Snow seems definitively apropos.

Mr. Ellis, Mr. Cassaday – this has to happen, peep the issue number!