Wyatt Cenac & Dean Haspiel Created Mash-Up Superhero For ‘Night Train’
by Hannah Means Shannon
We all know Wyatt Cenac is a friend to geeks, and his role in the Conan O’Brien-produced TV show People of Earth only cemented that association. It turns out that in filming an episode of his TV show Night Train, currently available via Starz, he collaborated with comic artist and writer Dean Haspiel on a mash-up superhero for a sketch.
The goal was to produce a superhero based on a combination of Thor and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall, called “Thorgood“. The result was pretty hilarious and epic, and you can see it on Night Train, and below:
Artist Dean Haspiel explains:
In January of 2017, my pal, Marianne Ways, one of NYC’s premier producers of comedy and variety shows (a few years ago, she convinced me to create/curate and host a few of my own salons at Union Hall in Brooklyn, NY), contacted me to illustrate a superhero conceived by comedian/actor Wyatt Cenac. They were producing a televised version of their variety show, Night Train with Wyatt Cenac, and one of the segments would riff on cos-play and comic book conventions. Wyatt came up with his new superhero based on a combination of lawyer and former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Thurgood Marshall, and Norse god, Thor, called THORGOOD. It was very easy to design and was fun to collaborate with the comedian. They recorded the episode early February, 2017.
Even though the variety show was produced for many years at Littlefield in Brooklyn, NY, two seasons of NIGHT TRAIN with Wyatt Cenac were also produced for the now defunct Seeso, and you can see those shows on the Starz network. The episode my art appears on is 202.
Thanks, Marianne and Wyatt!
Are the funny papers ready for Thorgood? Well, why not? There’s plenty of story potential in this character.