Flaming Carrot Comics

Flaming Carrot Comicsis an Americansuperherocomic bookcreated byBob Burden, featuring the absurd, surreal adventures of the Flaming Carrot.
The series first appeared inVisions#1, a magazine-size comic book publication. Flaming Carrot chronicled "the further adventures of the strangest man alive".Flaming Carrot is often noted for his distinctive exclamation "Ut!"Flaming Carrot adventures have been published byAardvark-Vanaheim,Renegade Press,Dark Horse Comics, andImage Comics, among others. He has guest-starred and made cameos in comics published byFantagraphics,Mirage Studios,Atomeka Press, and others.
The Flaming Carrot was in part inspired by the obscure Golden Age characterThe Fin.Burden recounted "I took this particular idea and scratched it down one night when I came home about three o'clock in the morning. I'd been out on the town all night, and it was one of those nights when I came home tired and fell asleep with my clothes on."When asked to explain the meaning of the character's catchphrase "Ut!", he stated:
Flaming Carrot Comicsand Burden's spin-offMysterymenproject went on to forsake the elitist, perfection-oriented traditional superheroes with characters who were blue-collar, second-string, roughnecks and goofballs with mediocre powers: outcasts that couldn't make it into the major leagues but saved people, risked everything and fought evil.
Hailing from rust-belt mill towns and backwater boondocks of America, Flaming Carrot and his fellow Mysterymen were irreverent, carousing, hard-drinking, ruffians and rabble-rousers, hammering square pegs into round holes, dodging lawsuits, cutting up, skirting the thin line between good and evil and earning a hot meal, a refreshing cocktail and some romance now and then.
Burden commented that "our theme was do the best you can with what you got, never leave a pal behind, lost causes are sometimes the best ones and keep it fun. I'd say, Flaming Carrot was to the regular superheroes what Huckleberry Finn was to Tom Sawyer".
The Flaming Carrot first appeared inVisions#1 (1979), a direct-market magazineand in subsequent yearly issues that eventually became the program booklet of theAtlanta Fantasy Fair, with Flaming Carrot stories went on to appear in each yearly edition of the magazine through 1987. Bob Burden illustrated and wrote the book, withlettering by Roxanne Starr, who went on to be one of the first pioneers of computer lettering.
In 1981, Burden, under the company name Killian Barracks Press, self-publishedFlaming Carrot Comics#1, an oversizedone-shot.Four to eight-page Flaming Carrot stories appeared in each subsequent annual issue ofVisionsthrough #4 (1982), that last of which contained an apocryphal Flaming Carrot history that convincedDave Sim, of the self-publishing companyAardvark-Vanaheim, to publish Flaming Carrot as a regular comic,First, however, Sim included back-up stories of the Carrot in the pages of Aardvark-Vanaheim'sCerebus'#61–62 (cover-datedApril–May 1984). The Carrot eventually guest starred in the series proper inCerebus#104 (Nov. 1987).
In the meantime, Aardvark-Vanaheim had publishedFlaming Carrot#1-5 (May 1984 - Jan. 1985).The company also published a3-Dspecial,A-V In 3-D#1 (Dec. 1984).
After Dave Sim and Deni Loubert, the couple behind Aardvark-Vanaheim, divorced, Loubert establishedRenegade Pressto publish all of Aardvark-Vanaheim's former titles apart fromCerebus. Flaming Carrot was one of these, and remained with Renegade until the publisher went bankrupt in 1988. Renegade published issues #6-17 (March 1985 - July 1987).Burden also published a short Flaming Carrot piece in theFantagraphicsanthologyAnything Goes!(Oct. 1986).
After Renegade, Burden took Flaming Carrot toDark Horse Comics, which published 14 more issues ofFlaming Carrot, #18-31 (June 1988 to Oct. 1994).Dark Horse also published Flaming Carrot stories in its anthologyDark Horse Presents#20 (Aug. 1988) and its annual anthologySan Diego Comic Con Comics#1.
Following issue #31 in 1994, the character appeared only sporadically inone-shotsover the next decade as Burden focused on writing stories for a number of new properties including a new Mysterymen comic series. In winter 1994, Bob Burden self-publishedFlaming Carrot Stories No. 1, referred to on the cover as a "Text Version of Future Issue". From 1997-1998, the company published four volumes of theFlaming Carrot Comics Collected Album, which was the first time the series had been reprinted, and the 64-page "Flaming Carrot Comics Annual No.1", featuring a new story. In 1999, Dark Horse published four issues of the spin-off series "Bob Burden's Original Mysterymen Comics", which did not feature the Flaming Carrot. In 2002, Dark Horse published thecrossoverspecialFlaming Carrot &Reid Fleming, World's Toughest Milkman, listed as Flaming Carrot Comics #32 in the indicia.
In 1993–1994,Mirage Studiospublished the four-issue seriesTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/ Flaming Carrot Crossover.Burden did not do the art for this series, however.
Flaming Carrotwas relaunched in 2004 withImage ComicsandDesperado Publishing. This series lasted two years, comprising four issues (simultaneously numbered #1-4, and #33-36).
The final appearance of Flaming Carrot was the 2006Photo Comic Special #1(#37), featuring "fumetti" style of storytelling using photographs instead of illustration, in conjunction with Sam Gaffin and his Killer Robots project.
The Flaming Carrot origin states that "having read 5,000 comics in a single sitting to win a bet, this poor man suffered brain damage and appeared directly thereafter as—the Flaming Carrot!".
Flaming Carrot's villains include the likes of the Artless Dodger, Don Wiskerando, The Bicycle Thief, Garbage Mouth, Mr. Chicken Pants, a giant spider with diapers on, and many others. The Carrot, who lives in Palookaville, a blue-collar district of rust-belt era Iron City,has staved off at least three alien invasions, aCommunisttakeover of Iron City, flying dead dogs, theMan in the Moon,Deathitself, and a cloned horde of evil marchingHitler's boots. Flaming Carrot even died in #6 by falling into a deep toxic waste pit in Palookaville, but was brought back from clinical death in #7, described his sojourn in Limbo in #8 and got back at those who sent him to Limbo in #9.
Flaming Carrot was also a founding member of theblue collarsuperhero group theMystery Men, introduced in a flashback/dream sequence inFlaming Carrot Comics#16. The story of this group was later made into the 1999 filmMystery Menand a short-lived spin-off comic book series. The Flaming Carrot himself does not appear in the film, although a handful of characters like Mr. Furious, the Shoveler, and Dr. Heller do. The Blue Raja characters serves as the Flaming Carrot's stand-in.
The Carrot wears a costume that consists of a giant carrot mask which extends from above his head to below his crotch, a white shirt, red pants, and flippers on his feet (in case he has to swim). The mask has a continually burning flame at the top and a secret compartment containing anuclear-poweredpogo stick(the mask and the pogo stick were invented by Dr. Heller of theMystery Men).The Flaming Carrot also wears a crime fightingutility beltwhich is filled withSilly Putty,rubber bands, laughing gas, randomplaying cards,sneezing powder, and other similarly frivolous items. Dr. Heller upgraded Flaming Carrot's equipment after bringing him back from the clinically dead. The Flaming Carrot also relies heavily on his9mmRadom pistolto kill his enemies.
The Flaming Carrot is able to go into a self-induced state of "Zen Stupidity" in order to face danger and evil boldly and without trepidation.
Flaming Carrot’s unpredictable antics, irreverent humor, fantastic characters and surreal storylines engendered a cult following and legendary status that still exists to this day. Burden attributes his longevity and success to the storytelling more than anything else: "The stories seem, at first glance, non-linear and spontaneous, and in truth they start that way, but they are really linear. I always somehow manage to orchestrate a beginning, middle and end. I believe I was born a natural storyteller, but journalism school and the Robert McKee books and writing seminars didn't hurt at all. Studying is not about memorizing or mimicking the methods of others. When trying to mentor young, new artists, my main objective is to teach them to teach themselves, to also learn on their own and experiment, take risks... just use knowledge as a jumping off point for wisdom. And always remember, no matter how hard it seems, it's also got to be fun. Never lose sight of that."
Like the primitive, raw New Wave music of the early 80s spawned from the art-student/garage-band movement, the New Wave comics championed creativity over musical experience and expertise. Flaming Carrot was one of the founding elements of the New Wave in comics, where independent, self-published, outside-the-box, creators wrote books that rebooted, reformatted and revived the comics industry. Burden never went to art school or took lessons, but collected and studied original comic art and took tips and critiques from experienced comic and art mentors likeJim Steranko,Stanislav SzukalskiandSteve Ditko.
Working outside of the company environment and skirting the creative hegemony of caution and apprehension that is born out of corporate liability and fear, the "Indi Comics" creators of the early 80s set a trend of more literary, more creative and more fun stories for the medium, with a fresh, novel approach to comics: one that brought in new, older and more diverse elements, and set new standards for the traditional, corporate elements of the comics industry to live up to.
The early, pioneering, and seminal New Wave/independent books likeCerebus The AardvarkandFlaming Carrot Comicsserved as "missing links" to the heritage of the then fading Underground comics. Books like Flaming Carrot carried on the explorations and off-the-wall forays of the preceding undergrounds, and revived the sense of freedom and creativity that the undergrounds had instigated.
Eventually, the comic revolution of the early 80s was absorbed and co-opted by the big companies and the mainstream comics industry, but not before giving inspiration to more commercial properties likeTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,SpawnandThe Crow, all of which crowned and validated theindie comicsmovement with mass-market success. In Burden's commentary: "Even Flaming Carrot succumbed to the pop comics frenzy with the 60 million-dollar spin-off Mystery Men movie from Universal. But walk down artist alley at any comic convention and there's a whole new generation of go-getters and story-tellers sharpening their pencils with a pocket knife, publishing their own short run books, having fun and ready to take on the world".