jacksonpublick

I have just returned home from the Adult Swim "Upfronts" (and the ensuing bar crawls and requisite, hangover-preventing pizza parlor visit) and so it is official...The Venture Bros. has been picked up for another season of 13 episodes! Having been forced to sit on this information for a week or two, it's nice to tell you all finally.

On top of that, it was good seeing the Adult Swim folks again, the other creators, and enjoying the free crap on hand--everything from the recently ubiquitous panini (Italy's trendy answer to the sandwich) to some sort of Adult Swim messenger bag/tote bag hybrid to Meatwad stress-relieving rubber balls. Also, there was a big, gay, blue bunny-man, who is no stranger to the downtown party scene but I never expected to see him at a network presentation designed to attract advertisers. Oh, and there were free frisbees, one of which I almost hit someone with, for which I (again) apologize profusely. I have to admit, though, that I missed The Rapture--they played last year's Upfronts

Anyhoo...we're still working out the kinks of the production schedule and stuff (and we've yet to receive the 2005 Saturn station wagon we demanded during negotiations--complete with illuminated license plate frames and Astrobase Go! logo on the hood) but Doc and I plan to start writing next week. Officially, anyway--unofficially we've already filled many a page of our respective Moleskine notebooks with story ideas and "bits". Once we have 4-6 scripts done we'll start animation production and, with any luck, the first episodes should start coming back from Korea by late fall/early winter...which means they'll begin airing toward the end of the first quarter of 2006 most likely (but don't quote me on that). I certainly wish we could get them out there sooner, but apparently thousands of drawings arranged in a series to simulate motion take some time to make.

Ah, I can almost hear the complaints of "it's not as good as last year!" already, fueled by a year's worth of reruns...

Doc and I of course thank you all for all of your support over the past few months. There's no doubt that the deluge of posts to the Adult Swim message boards in response to the "should we renew Venture Bros.?" cards raised a few eyebrows down in Atlanta, and the messages you've all sent via this journal, the website and the boards have reddened our faces.

Oh yeah, and the Astrobase Go! t-shirts are officially sold out...so thanks for buying them all!

--jp