further reading: The Tick Season 2 Review

Lobstercules, combined with The Tick’s shedding of his own carapace, leads to an unusually molt-centric season of television. Perhaps it’s too on the nose to point out that the fascination with shells and the shedding of said shells is a metaphor for the series really coming into its own…but we’ll say it anyway. The Tick Season 2 capably continues the story of the ebullient blue superhero and his trusty partner Arthur, as they navigate a new world of superhero regulations, politics, public relations, and yes: actual crime-fighting.

We spoke with Edlund to discuss all manner of marine biology, but more importantly to learn about what went in to making The Tick Season 2, the bureaucracy of superhero-dom, and even the possibility of The Tick Season 3.

DEN OF GEEK: It seems like there’s a bigger emphasis on the public relations angle of superheroes this season. What was the thought process was like in wanting to explore that a little bit more of that?

BEN EDLUND: It all comes from telling the story. It’s a simple story that sort of flowers outward. It was Arthur at first and he was alone. Then he got a friend, who was a superhero and it reminded him that he was supposed to be doing something. The alarm went off in his life and he realized, “I’m supposed to be a hero,” so he took the hero’s journey in season one, and his focus and our focus was very myopic, it was almost binary, it was the Arthur/Tick versus The Terror. And certain characters came in and expanded their world but they really just sort of built this bedrock of family around these two guys.