The comic came first, then the cartoon. My brother recorded a few of the cartoons and showed them to us assembled family members one Christmas, and I saw a few, but couldn't hang around to see more than a few because one of my kids was small and sick, and needed me to be up in the isolation ward with her much of the evening. I subsequently ran across the comics in a bookstore. Similar, but with added man-eating cow.

ETA: The cartoon version is now out on DVD.