View source for Flaming Carrot Comics

{{DISPLAYTITLE:''Flaming Carrot Comics''}}
{{Short description|American superhero comic}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=August 2024}}
{{Infobox comics character
| character_name = The Flaming Carrot
| image          = FlamingCarrot.jpg
| caption        = The Flaming Carrot, from ''Flaming Carrot'' #4 (Image Comics, 2006); art by [[Bob Burden]].
| publisher      = [[Aardvark-Vanaheim]] (1984–1985)<br />[[Renegade Press]] (1985–1987)<br />[[Dark Horse Comics]] (1988–2002)<br />[[Image Comics]] (2004–2006)
| debut          = ''Visions'' #1 (Atlanta Fantasy Fair, 1979)
| creators       = [[Bob Burden]]
| species        = Human
| powers         = Ability to induce himself in a state of "Zen Stupidity"<br>Use of nuclear powered pogo stick and a semi-automatic pistol<br>Wears a utility belt
| module         = {{infobox comic book title | subbox = yes | italic title = no
| title          = Flaming Carrot Comics
| schedule       = Irregular
| format         = [[Ongoing series]]
| issues         = 37
| main_char_team = Flaming Carrot
| ongoing        = y
| genre          = [[Independent comics|Independent]]
| startyr        = 1984
| endyr          = 2006
| startmo        = May
| endmo          = Mar.
| writers        = [[Bob Burden]]
| artists        = [[Bob Burden]]
}}
}}
'''''Flaming Carrot Comics''''' is an American [[superhero]] [[comic book]] created by [[Bob Burden]], featuring the absurd, surreal adventures of the Flaming Carrot.

The series first appeared in ''Visions'' #1, a magazine-size comic book publication. Flaming Carrot chronicled "the further adventures of the strangest man alive".<ref>{{cite web |last1=Burden |first1=Bob |title=Bob Burden: Home |url=http://bobburden.com/ |website=Bobburden.com |access-date=25 November 2018}}</ref> Flaming Carrot is often noted for his distinctive exclamation "Ut!"<ref name="DAK40">{{cite news | first = Jack | last = Mallette | date = November 1986 | title = Bob Burden (part 1) | work = [[Comics Interview]] | issue = #40 | pages = 22–41 | publisher = [[Fictioneer Books]]}}</ref> Flaming Carrot adventures have been published by [[Aardvark-Vanaheim]], [[Renegade Press]], [[Dark Horse Comics]], and [[Image Comics]], among others. He has guest-starred and made cameos in comics published by [[Fantagraphics]], [[Mirage Studios]], [[Atomeka Press]], and others.

==Concept and themes==
The Flaming Carrot was in part inspired by the obscure Golden Age character [[Fin (comics)|The Fin]].<ref name="DAK40"/> 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."<ref name="DAK40"/> When asked to explain the meaning of the character's catchphrase "Ut!", he stated: {{blockquote|I'll tell you who said it. At [[Shea Stadium Concert|Shea Stadium]], when [[the Beatles]] were all up there, and the fans were trying to rush the stage, and the police were trying to keep them behind the barricades, [[George Harrison]] points to one that gets through, and says, "Ut!" It's like oops! It's just a goofy thing that's kind of childlike and fun.<ref name="DAK40"/>}}
''Flaming Carrot Comics'' and Burden's spin-off ''Mysterymen'' project 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".

==Publication history==
The Flaming Carrot first appeared in ''Visions'' #1 (1979), a direct-market magazine<ref name="DAK40"/>  and in subsequent yearly issues that eventually became the program booklet of the [[Atlanta 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, with [[Roxanne Starr|lettering by Roxanne Starr]], who went on to be one of the first pioneers of computer lettering.{{citation needed|date=July 2012}}

In 1981, Burden, under the company name Killian Barracks Press, self-published ''Flaming Carrot Comics'' #1, an oversized [[one-shot (comics)|one-shot]].<ref name=gcdkillian>[http://www.comics.org/series/32556/ ''Flaming Carrot Comics'' Killian Barracks Press, 1981 series] at the [[Grand Comics Database]]</ref> Four to eight-page Flaming Carrot stories appeared in each subsequent annual issue of ''Visions'' through #4 (1982), that last of which contained an apocryphal Flaming Carrot history that convinced [[Dave Sim]], of the self-publishing company [[Aardvark-Vanaheim]], to publish Flaming Carrot as a regular comic,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://flamingcarrot.com/FlamingCarrotPage/FCbibliography.html |title=Flaming Carrot Bibliography |publisher=Flamingcarrot.com |access-date=2011-07-18 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20000411140809/http://flamingcarrot.com/FlamingCarrotPage/FCbibliography.html |archive-date=2000-04-11 |url-status=bot: unknown }}</ref> First, however, Sim included back-up stories of the Carrot in the pages of Aardvark-Vanaheim's ''[[Cerebus (comics)|Cerebus]]''' #61–62 ([[cover-date]]d April–May 1984). The Carrot eventually guest starred in the series proper in ''Cerebus'' #104 (Nov. 1987).

In the meantime, Aardvark-Vanaheim had published ''Flaming Carrot'' #1-5 (May 1984 - Jan. 1985).<ref name=gcdaardvark>[http://www.comics.org/series/2912/ ''Flaming Carrot Comics'', Aardvark-Vanaheim, 1984 series] at the Grand Comics Database</ref> The company also published a [[Stereoscopy|3-D]] special, ''A-V In 3-D'' #1 (Dec. 1984).

After Dave Sim and Deni Loubert, the couple behind Aardvark-Vanaheim, divorced, Loubert established [[Renegade Press]] to publish all of Aardvark-Vanaheim's former titles apart from ''Cerebus''. 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).<ref>[http://www.comics.org/series/3125/ ''Flaming Carrot Comics'', Renegade Press, 1985 series] at the Grand Comics Database</ref> Burden also published a short Flaming Carrot piece in the [[Fantagraphics]] anthology ''Anything Goes!'' (Oct. 1986).

After Renegade, Burden took Flaming Carrot to [[Dark Horse Comics]], which published 14 more issues of ''Flaming Carrot'', #18-31 (June 1988 to Oct. 1994).<ref>[http://www.comics.org/series/3740/ ''Flaming Carrot Comics'', Dark Horse, 1988 series] at the Grand Comics Database</ref> Dark Horse also published Flaming Carrot stories in its anthology ''[[Dark Horse Presents]]'' #20 (Aug. 1988) and its annual anthology ''San Diego Comic Con Comics'' #1.

Following issue #31 in 1994, the character appeared only sporadically in [[one-shot (comics)|one-shots]] over 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-published ''Flaming 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 the ''Flaming 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 the [[fictional crossover|crossover]] special ''Flaming Carrot & [[Reid Fleming, World's Toughest Milkman]]'', listed as Flaming Carrot Comics #32 in the indicia.

In 1993–1994, [[Mirage Studios]] published the four-issue series ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]] / Flaming Carrot Crossover''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.comicvine.com/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtlesflaming-carrot-crossov/4050-5182/|title=Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Flaming Carrot Crossover » 4 issues|publisher=Comicvine|date=1993–1994|access-date=5 October 2014}}</ref> Burden did not do the art for this series, however.

''Flaming Carrot'' was relaunched in 2004 with [[Image Comics]] and [[Desperado Publishing]]. This series lasted two years, comprising four issues (simultaneously numbered #1-4, and #33-36).

The final appearance of Flaming Carrot was the 2006 ''Photo Comic Special #1'' (#37), featuring "fumetti" style of storytelling using photographs instead of illustration, in conjunction with Sam Gaffin and his Killer Robots project.

==Fictional character biography==
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,<ref>[http://www.toonopedia.com/fcarrot.htm  Flaming Carrot page] at [[Don Markstein's Toonopedia]]. {{webarchive |url=https://archive.today/20240525221840/https://www.webcitation.org/66xafaPrU?url=http://www.toonopedia.com/fcarrot.htm |date=2024-05-25}} from the original on April 16, 2012</ref> has staved off at least three alien invasions, a [[Communist]] takeover of Iron City, flying dead dogs, the [[Man in the Moon]], [[Personifications of death|Death]] itself, and a cloned horde of evil marching [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]]'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 the [[blue collar]] superhero group the [[Mystery Men]], introduced in a flashback/dream sequence in ''Flaming Carrot Comics'' #16. The story of this group was later made into the 1999 film ''[[Mystery Men]]'' and 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.

== Powers and abilities ==
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 a [[Nuclear power|nuclear-powered]] [[pogo stick]] (the mask and the pogo stick were invented by Dr. Heller of the [[Mystery Men]]).<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.flamingcarrot.com/FC/secrets.html | title = Secrets of the Carrot! | publisher = FlamingCarrot.com | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090204234214/http://www.flamingcarrot.com/FC/secrets.html | archive-date = February 4, 2009 | access-date= June 7, 2011}}</ref> The Flaming Carrot also wears a crime fighting [[utility belt]] which is filled with [[Silly Putty]], [[rubber band]]s, laughing gas, random [[playing card]]s, [[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 his [[9×19mm Parabellum|9mm]] [[Vis pistol|Radom pistol]] to 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.<ref>Burden, Bob. "Bob Speaks!", ''Flaming Carrot'' #33 (Images/Desperado, December 2004).</ref>

== Legacy ==
{{Unreferenced section|date=August 2021}}
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 like [[Jim Steranko]], [[Stanisław Szukalski|Stanislav Szukalski]] and [[Steve 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 like ''[[Cerebus the Aardvark|Cerebus The Aardvark]]'' and ''Flaming Carrot Comics'' served 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 like ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Mirage Studios)|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'', ''[[Spawn (character)|Spawn]]'' and ''[[The Crow]]'', all of which crowned and validated the [[Alternative comics|indie comics]] movement 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".

==Awards==
* 1992 [[Eisner Award]] nomination: Best Continuing Series<ref name=eisner>[http://www.hahnlibrary.net/comics/awards/eisner92.php 1992 Will Eisner Comic Industry Award Nominees and Winners], Comic Book Awards Almanac</ref>
* 1992 Eisner Award nomination: Best Humor Publication<ref name=eisner />
* [[List of Eisner Award winners#Best Humor Publication|2007 Eisner Award: Best Humor Publication]]

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* {{Official website|http://www.flamingcarrot.com}} (inactive as of Oct. 2018)
* {{Comicbookdb|type=character|id=5342|title=Flaming Carrot}}
* {{Cite web |last= Davisson |first= Zack |date=December 1, 2010 |title=This Flame, This Carrot |url=http://www.comicsbulletin.com/grind/129126934663262.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101228125519/http://www.comicsbulletin.com/grind/129126934663262.htm |archive-date=December 28, 2010 |department= Comics Grind + Rewind (column) |publisher=[[Comics Bulletin]]}}
* {{Cite web |last=Barr |first=Roger |title=You Too Can Be a Flaming Carrot! |url=http://www.i-mockery.com/shorts/flamingcarrot/default.php |publisher=I-Mockery.com |date=n.d. |access-date=July 9, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110629102840/http://www.i-mockery.com/shorts/flamingcarrot/default.php |archive-date=June 29, 2011 |url-status=live}} Instructions for making a Flaming Carrot costume <!--name of writer/editor Barr at site's Info page, not on article, bylined only "RoG"-->

{{Aardvark-Vanaheim}}

[[Category:1984 comics debuts]]
[[Category:Aardvark-Vanaheim titles]]
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[[Category:Eisner Award winners for Best Humor Publication]]
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