Svengoolie is a cultural icon in the Chicagoland area. The TV show personality hosts a weekly series where he introduces horror movies, makes numerous puns, gets rubber chickens thrown at him, does song parodies. But how will this character work within the context of the DC comic book universe? Pretty easily, it seems.
Coming to DC Comics on October 16, Svengoolie will meet the DC Universe in a special two-page back-up story for all DC books, running for four weeks. During New York Comic-Con, GameSpot spoke to DC Comics co-publisher Dan Didio and Svengoolie himself about the upcoming story, which you can check out a preview of below.
“He seems like a natural fit,” Didio told GameSpot. “I mean, just the shear costume alone? No. I think Svengoolie is the hero that DC wanted, and DC needed. Is that the best way to say it? And for us, it was something that we thought there was a lot of similarities, and the audience that Svengoolie has on MeTV, and the comics that we create. It seemed like a natural fit. DC has a long history of horror comics and horror stories, and so again, we found a way to blend that aspect of what they brought to the show and mix it nicely with our super-heroes. Svengoolie with the Justice League is something that I felt was a fun mash-up that I think came together even better than we expected.”
There are a lot of things Svengoolie is known for, and it’s not just the costume. The MeTV host is known for his quirky, sometimes cringy sense of humor, and that’s something the duo are bringing to this back-up story. “I think there’s a lot of puns, a lot of the kind of jokes that you expect,” explained Svengoolie. “You’ll notice things that you see on the show [are] also happening in the comic. And, I don’t want to give too much away, but let me just say you’re talking about rubber chickens? They play a very big part in it.”
As for the classic Svengoolie line “Berwyn”–a Chicago suburb that’s mentioned on almost every episode of the TV show–fans won’t be disappointed. “There’s a lot of classic jokes in there from things that you would see on the show,” continued Didio. “That’s the fun of it because I really do think it does capture the spirit of the show within each of the pages there. There’s a good Svengoolie joke in every segment.”
You can check out Svengoolie teaming up with the Justice League beginning on October 16 in the back of DC comic books.
