Publick Nuisance

SPOILER ALERT!

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:02:31 GMT

The Season 3 preview piece we showed at the NY Comicon is now up, in all it's non-bootlegged, widescreen, crystal-clear, fully audible glory over at QUICK STOP ENTERTAINMENT . Or, you can watch it below (I think...I've never embedded a video before).

Don't watch it if you don't want to ruin anything for yourselves...

It should be noted that, while an entertaining group of clips, this piece is by no means a "best of Season 3" reel. Doc only had three and a half completed episodes to cull from at the time he put this together.

Production updates and more about our Comicon experience to come in a later post...

We Love You,
JP

Last Minute Announcement

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 05:47:57 GMT

I think this is open to the public, but I'm not sure...

Doc Hammer, Liz Artinian (color supervisor), Stephen DeStefano (storyboard & design director), and I will be discussing all things Venture and screening the entirety of the episode Adult Swim previewed a couple of weeks ago...only ours will have sound.

...for more info, go to the ASIFA EAST's website.

Hosted by TV's Dave Levy.

--JP

Sucker Punch!

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 05:07:37 GMT

For those who don't know, adultswim has made an annual tradition of screwing around with their programming for April Fools' Day, and this year they chose to broadcast "rough cuts" of some of their shows--including The Venture Bros. So if you were lucky/cursed enough to be watching adultswim this past Sunday night (I was neither), you would have been witness to the first 11 minutes of episode #28 ("The Doctor Is Sin") in its rawest form: a low resolution, straight-from-Korea "first take" with no sound effects, no music, and a ton of mistakes. Notorious perfectionist control freaks that we are, Doc and I were...somewhat less-than-thrilled when we heard the news (and even less than less-than-thrilled to have learned it from the viewers, not the network, and only after the fact). To us it was the psychological equivalent of having naked pictures of ourselves circulated on the internet. At first anyway. I've since warmed to the idea--because it reminds me that Adult Swim is a silly network that takes chances and has fun with itself, when I could have been working for some average, boring, anal network. Plus, if the message boards are to be trusted, you all seem to think we look nice naked...

Ironically, we turned the fully finished version of that self-same episode in the very next day. There are horror stories to tell about the production mishaps that plagued it from script to final cut (and all points in between), but those can wait to be bitched about until it airs for real...

Anyway, the aforementioned production problems and a couple of untimely flus have put us slightly behind in post-production. We've fully completed three episodes to date, we're currently editing picture on the fourth (its next stop is the sound engineer), and we'll be starting the fifth this weekend. To give you an idea of how screwy the production order is this season, the first episode we turned in (#27) is going to air third or fourth, depending on how quickly we can rush #37--written eleventh and produced tenth, which we hope to air third but will probably air fourth--through post-production. The second episode we turned in (#29) was written third and produced second, but is going to air eleventh. The third (#28) was written second, produced third, and will air second. And #32, which was written and produced sixth--but will be edited fifth--is actually the premier episode of the season. I dare you to try to keep that kind of continuity conundrum straight in your head...

Somehow, in the midst of all of this, Doc and I are also expected to begin writing season 4 and producing the DVD set for the not-even-finished-yet season 3. And we've both been doing a little moonlighting--Doc's been making music and I'm doing some voices and a little writing for adultswim's forthcoming SuperJail series. It's been a busy month, yes...

And now, the News in brief...

ITEM: The Venture Bros. will premier on June 1st.

ITEM: Doc and I were interviewed in the sophomore issue of Comic Foundry magazine, which is now on the stands. Aside from a preoccupation with the recent "Stephen Colbert Incident" (and the fact that they refer to me as "Pollack" no less than three times), the 2 page spread provides a nice little preview of the upcoming season with only mild spoilers.

ITEM: Kid Robot has made some miniature Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend figurines, which will be available in mystery packaging along with like 16 other adultswim figurines. So good luck if you decide to buy one. Or two.

ITEM: Doc and I will be attending the Venture Bros. panel at the New York Comicon on Saturday, April 19th at 4:00pm. Urbaniak and Sinterniklaas will be joining us, and we're hoping to cajole a couple of other people into dancing into the fire with us. Honorary AstroBase Cadet Ken Plume will be moderating the festivities.

ITEM: Word has it we'll be attending the San Diego Comicon in July this year as well, adultswim having retracted their unofficial boycott. But it's too soon to know what we'll be doing there other than sweating and trying to find affordable Robert McGinnises.

We Love You,
JP

P.S. The usual insincere-sounding apologies for the long delay between posts. When you finally find yourself to getting a little rest and free time after killing yourself to make a show for ten months straight, the last thing you want to do is think about that show--which can sometimes include posting about that show on your LiveJournal. Actually, the last thing you want to do is anything that doesn't involve lying on the couch all day watching every episode of Deadwood. Or maybe Munich for like the tenth time.

Contest Over (Sorry)

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 05:41:06 GMT

I must apologize for failing to make an official post about the fact that the joint "Guess the Celebrity Cameo"/ "Who's Secret Lair Is This?" contest is over. The winners submitted their correct answers roughly five minutes after the the contest began. A number of you have continued to submit guesses all month, and I have silently let you suffer. I apologize.

Nothing more to report. Too swamped with pre-production on this season's finale, and post-production on the second episode of the season to upload fancy art or craft amusing production anecdotes. More soon.

Still love you,
JP

P.S. The correct answers were:

1. Dick Cavett, Sammy Davis Jr., Aleister Crowley
2. The room belongs to the pink gentleman in the white wheelchair at the far left.

Holiday Gift Bonanza!!!

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 05:38:34 GMT

Happy Holidays and all that good stuff to you all. You will find your annual Venture Bros.-themed digital music gift tucked inside your world wide information super-stocking by clicking HERE.

The studio's been abuzz with holiday shenanigans, even as we raced the clock to deliver another animatic and worked right up till the last moment. World Leaders hosted not one but three festive events in the past week, employing the crew's talents for such varied disciplines as karaoke, secret gift-giving, and heavy drinking. Things got rolling last week with a genuine Chili Cook-off, which I am proud to say my girlfriend and I took second place in. Blow-by-blow, on-the-day details can be found on Venture Bros. animatic/Animo editor Tom Bayne's rambling blog.

Speaking of blogs, Storyboard Czar Stephen DeStefano has a lovely one, and has seen fit to festoon it with a handful of his wonderfully expressive revision panels from one of our upcoming episodes. Check it out.

And now for your second gift:
Our overseas studio has already sent back three episodes, and here are some randomly-selected, out-of-context screengrabs from those self-same episodes, just to prove to you we're actually making a show in between all the heavy drinking and chili cooking, and that it actually looks pretty good:

GRINCH!...
One sour note from the past month (aside from my car getting hit yet again) is that Mr. Stephen Colbert has decided not to reprise his role as Professor Impossible this season, for reasons which probably have something to do with him being all super-famous, super-busy, and no longer in need of a few hundred bucks here and there. We figured this would happen eventually, considering his monumental success in the years since our first season, but we held out hope that the WGA strike would leave him with enough bored free time on his hands that he'd have a go at it. But after getting shuffled around from his assistant to his assistant's assistant to his agent to his manager, one of them finally shot us an email saying: "Stephen has neither the time nor the interest in participating in your project."

Was the "nor the interest" really necessary? I would have bought the "time" part without question, but man...you gotta kick a guy when he's down like that? Well maybe I'm not interested in your ice cream, mister! Or your book. Unless someone buys it for me for Christmas.

Your third gift:
I've been neglecting to show off any of the work of our talented character design team, so allow me to rectify that with lovely cast photo below, which depicts just some of the many characters who will appear in the first 2/3 of Season 3. As usual, I won't give away who anybody is, or how much screen time they get, and leave you to wonder (and probably imagine far better adventures than we ever use them in). Designs are by Matt Jenkins, Martin Wittig, Doug Lovelace, Kano, and the pinch hitter Chris George. Character colors by Carly Monardo. Background painting by Chris Fisher.

...And lastly...

...SURPRISE CHRISTMAS CONTEST!!!

Okay, now that you've looked at the bewildering "cast photo" above, be the first to comment back with the correct answer to either of the two following questions, and win a fantastic prize. Two questions, two winners. Here we go:

1. Which of these characters, if any, does this room actually belong to?

2. There are three famous, non-fictional people in the picture. Name all three.

Tell them what they win, Jackson...

Our lucky winners will receive an ultra-limited edition, not-for-sale-anywhere Venture Bros. American Apparel track jacket! These were produced exclusively for the cast and crew of the show and are available nowhere but my office. They're gray, the front is emblazoned with a white silhouette of the boys in "Go Team Venture" pose, tastefully small across the left breast, and on the back is the Venture Industries logo in full color, as tastelessly large as I could fit it.

Good luck, and Happy Holidays!

We Love You,
JP

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 15:41:28 GMT

...and welcome to post-production! The first take of the first episode of season 3 of The Venture Bros. arrived from Korea last week, and the overseas studio did a fine job on this, our first widescreen format HD episode. Retakes aplenty are forthcoming, as always, and in less than a month we'll have the final footage in our hands to begin editing.

Meanwhile, in pre-production, we've just finished revising the storyboard and editing the animatic for ep. 35, which was a grueling pain in the ass (why must I write fight scenes with 30 characters in them?) but well worth it and much the better for our efforts. We're now going to skip ahead to ep. 37, because Doc and I were foolish enough to wait till the third-to-last script to write an episode that needs to air third in continuity.

Speaking of air dates, some bad news: we're probably not going to premier the third season until June now. I don't have an official date yet, but that's the latest word from Atlanta. Which is probably a wise decision, considering our production schedule. On the plus side, we will have already started production on season 4 by then, so the wait between seasons 3 and 4 won't be so merciless.

Anyway, have a great Thanksgiving. Next time: more production art, including some new character art, and perhaps more frame grabs from new episodes.

We Love You,
JP

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 04:37:47 GMT

I missed a plane to Bermuda today. So here's a cartoon one.

Night Falls on the Writing Season...

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 05:20:37 GMT

Doc and I have just finished writing episode 39 of The Venture Bros., which, if you do your math, is the finale of Season Three. So we're done with the writing for a while, though, thanks to a number of intriguing plot developments in this last episode, we find ourselves uncharacteristically enthusiastic about starting up the next season as soon as possible. The past month was grueling--hence no posts here for a while--but rewarding. While we were writing the last two episodes at night, I was spending my days revising the storyboards and editing the animatic for the premier episode. Needless to say, the alpha and omega of any season are terribly important, so obsessing over getting both right at the same time with only so many hours in the day in which to do it was a challenge. Fortunately, I was not alone in either endeavor. Doc wrote heroically, and the storyboard team really busted their collective hump. Thank you, guys and gals.

Other than that, production's going pretty well. A little bit behind schedule, as always, but everyone is turning out great work. We're presently designing ep. 39, editing the animatic and coloring for ep. 33, storyboarding eps. 37 & 38, and we're set to record ep. 36 this week. I'm looking forward to being a full-time director and having my nights free for a while, but post-production will be starting up in about a month and a half, when we start seeing footage from Korea--screengrabs of which I'll undoubtedly post when the time comes. We've never edited HD footage before (did I mention The Venture Bros. is being made in HD this season?), so it should be interesting and full of unforseen technical dilemmas.

Now that I can look back on a full 13 scripts, I can truthfully say it will be a weird season. We dug deeper than we have before, told richer stories, took some chances (we'll see if they pay off), and, as promised in the commentary for the Season Two DVD, made no intentional Star Wars references. I think we managed to hit just about every semi-important character who's appeared before (with the exception of Baron Ünderbheit--might as well tell you now), including some Season 1 favorites who didn't get much play in season 2. And we introduced plenty of new ones, adding multiple layers of backstory (and forwardstory) to the Team Venture saga. And though we wrote more "stand-alone" episodes than usual, there is definitely an arc to this season. Long time viewers will undoubtedly get more out of it than newer ones, who we'll probably alienate altogether. One thing I can promise you is this: if you're a fan of the show, and at some point mid-way into this coming season you start wondering to yourself things like "How come they never __________ anymore?" or "Whatever happend to __________?"...just wait. It's coming.

With that, I offer you some more full-color glimpses of previously undisclosed areas of the Venture Compound, courtesy of Liz Artinian, Chris Fischer, and Deo Pangandoyon:

Hallway (with view toward the Rocket Observatory)...

The Venture Surveillance Room...

The Venture Lobby...

We Love You,
JP

Random P.S.es...

• Since it's been so long since I posted, I never got a chance to properly thank those of you who attended DragonCon in Atlanta and passed on gifts to me via Doc. So...thank you all. The snacks and care packages got me through many a late night writing session this month, and the "AstroBase BMX Dinosaur" t-shirt has become a staple of my wardrobe and the envy of my friends.

• Congratulations to my pal Phil Rynda, who received an Emmy last month for his character design work on a Billy and Mandy special.

• Somewhere in the midst of all that stuff above, I found time to read Austin Grossman's Soon I Will Be Invincible, which I recommend checking out if you're a fan of The Venture Bros. or any of the things in this popular culture stew of a world that inspired it.

• To Whomever Hit My Car (when it was PARKED): DICK!!! Come on, man. $1,400 of damage and you don't leave a note or anything?

Sorry! An Unexpected Error Has Occurred.

Sun, 26 Aug 2007 05:00:55 GMT

Super-busy crunch time of the season, which always happens around this time...so not much to say other than "we're working really hard."

Doc and I are presently collaborating on episode 37, which we intend to sandwich in as third or fourth in the airing order, since it introduces a plot line/character arc we've been playing with all season but somehow never got around to writing the genesis of earlier on. We'll only have two left to finish out the season after that--which instills me with a paradoxical combination of emotions: "my, where has the time gone?" and "crap...we're not out of the woods yet...what are we gonna do for a big finale this time?"

Recorded Patrick Warburton for episodes 33, 35 and 36 over the phone today--he in Burbank and me in Brooklyn. I was supposed to go to L.A. this weekend to record him, Urbaniak, Dana Snyder and a couple of other guys, but Urbaniak and the Snyde magically appeared in New York this week so I cancelled the trip and recorded them here. Which worked out nicely because Doc and I are a bit behind in our writing and he's going to DragonCon next weekend (which I'm not). Every day I don't have to waste six hours on a plane, stare at the walls of a Hollywood motel, or walk around like a zombie because I'm exhausted from doing either of those things, counts. Of course, this means I'll have to go out there in September...but I'm trying to book a couple of guest voice actors to make it more fun and keep things interesting. They probably won't mean much to anyone but me, but I'm excited about it. Why can't you just let me enjoy this?!

Speaking of me enjoying myself, I paid my first visit of the season to J.G. Thirlwell's place last night to chat about the score for the first few episodes. I was treated to several earsful of some of the themes he's been working on in anticipation of the hours of music he'll have to create this year, and, needless to say, everything I heard was super-cool.

Other than that, we just finished the animatic for episode 30, the design department is working on episode 36, the storyboard guys are plugging away at episode 35 (check out Stephen De Stefano's blog for a window into that world), and we've just shipped episode 29 to the studio in Korea to be animated.

One more brick in the almost non-existent wall of Venture Bros. merchandising is about to be mortared into place--I just got my 3 free copies of a 2008 Venture Bros. calendar in the mail. So look for those in stores...um...some time...soon-ish?

In non-Venture news, Adult Swim's SuperJail has just gone into production on their first season (wish them luck) and it looks like I'll be doing some voices for that.

As will become habit for the next few months, I bid you a fond farewell-for-now with some images of this season's background paintings...

The Revised Venture Living Room...

The Revised Venture Kitchen...

The Revised Venture Compound Overhead (on an importantly gloomy day)...

We Love You,
JP

P.S. If you're a fan of The Venture Bros.--especially the sad and lonely parts about loss and failure--I highly recommend Joe Meno's The Boy Detective Fails, which I recently re-read, and which is available at finer bookstores everywhere.

...then shake off those blues with an eyewalk through Brandon Bird's portfolio.

Glorious Extra-Color

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 16:05:08 GMT

Haven't posted in a while. Because I didn't have much of anything to show and/or tell. And because I've been very busy: production is in full swing now, with almost all departments operating at full steam (except for the animation direction department, which starts Friday) and half a dozen episodes or more in play at various stages of development. We've turned in seven scripts so far, with Doc expected to turn in the eighth this week. Doc and I have, so far, only written one together--the premier--but hope to rectify that with the ninth script starting next week. If there's an overall theme to the season developing, it would appear to be the repercussions of the past on our characters' present--flashbacks abound! One trend that's also developed among the stories thusfar is the further exploration of our supporting characters. Indeed, there are a couple of episodes in which the Ventures family are all but guest stars in their own show. On the other hand, we've also been exploring many heretofore unseen rooms and wings inside the Venture Compound, so our protagonists are not without plenty to do themselves, nor are they bereft of surprises.

We've had a few production setbacks, which is par for the course on this show, but we seem to be weathering them and recovering well. This season's team is the absolute best we've ever had--I'm completely confident in their abilities to make this the best-looking season yet--and I'm terribly grateful to them for both that and the fact that I haven't had to pull any all-nighters yet.

Speaking of good-looking, now that we've finally deployed the color department, below are some of the first background paintings from the new season, as promised last time:

The new and improved Venture Compound "master shot"...

...and the Conjectural Technologies bathroom...

That's about it for now. More next time. Oh, and unfortunately, it doesn't look like Doc or I will be attending the San Diego Comic Con. Adult Swim has...I won't say "boycotted" it...but they've decided not to have a presence there--which means they're not sending us out for free.

We Love You Anyway,

JP

P.S. On a sad note, I only this week learned of the passing of Daniel Robert Epstein, interviewer extraordinaire, perhaps best known for his work on the SuicideGirls website (I would hotlink him, but he's done hundreds of interviews--Google him!). I've only met Daniel on three occasions, the most recent being about two months ago when he came by The Astrobase to interview Doc and me, but, as all his interviewees can attest, he was a supercool guy who made you feel more like you were hanging out and having a conversation with a friend than being interviewed. I'm sad I didn't get to know him better, and my heart goes out to his wife.

Together Again for the First Time...

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 05:53:11 GMT

So I got up at 4am on Friday to fly to Los Angeles (having missed my Thursday evening flight like a jackass), and I've just returned home. The mission? To record Patrick Warburton for the first five episodes of season 3 of The Venture Bros. But of course, now that James Urbaniak has moved there (and flying in the face of rumors about his departure from the show), I was there to record him for episodes 30 and 31 as well. Which meant...Dr. Venture and Brock Samson were, for the first time in the history of the series, in the same room at the same time. Obviously, the photo opportunity was not to be missed, and the location (NYAV Post's Western adjunct) provided a lovely backdrop. So that was my Friday...recording these talented fellows for something like 7 hours, while riding out an airplane and insomnia-induced sinus headache.

Sunday I went back to the studio to record the also-talented Dana Snyder and Brendon Small, then caught Ocean's Thirteen with Dana and accompanied him to a sweet little geeky CD listening party. Then it was on to the El Cid restaurant to join James and Todd Alcott for a burlesque show featuring the Sinatra-esque vocal and comedic stylings of Toby Huss, a guy James and Todd know from their ancient, late-80's/early 90's downtown performance days, but who I've only enjoyed from afar as the inspired lunatic behind MTV's best interstitials from the mid-90's (and the guy who stole the show in the Brendon Fraser remake of Bedazzled). He is also the only man on the planet I'd ever want to play The Monarch in a live action interpretation of The Venture Bros., not that anyone's asking.

In between, I spent my free Saturday taking pictures of the actual Frank Lloyd Wright house that inspired Phantom Limb's place, just for kicks...

...Then I went to join my friend Ben at a children's mud-wrestling party in Topanga Canyon--which was undoubtedly the closest thing to the cover of Houses of the Holy I've ever seen in real life.

But now it's back to work. Doc and I are busy plowing through the script for the premier episode, we've got five others done already, the fourth of which is being designed and the first of which is in its animatic stage. Next week the color department starts, so perhaps I'll be able to start posting some dizzyingly lovely art from the show again soon...

We love you,
JP

The Adult Swim Upfronts were this week...

Sun, 29 Apr 2007 17:26:51 GMT

For those who don't know, Upfronts are a traditional event that pretty much all networks engage in. The network in question invites all their potential advertisers to a gala affair to showcase their present and future programming, in hopes of attracting advertising dollars. There are usually speeches and clips and graphs and charts and so forth explaining what a good idea it is to advertise on their lineup. I went to one of these things for the Fox network about six years ago, when the live action The Tick series was set to premiere and it was in a huge theater in mid-town. The Brian Setzer Orchestra opened the festivities with a re-written, Fox-themed rendition of The Stray Cats' "Rock This Town" and then Frankie Muniz came out to really get the party rolling in his inimitably precocious, freckle-cheeked way. Each new series in their upcoming Fall lineup was touted by the executives, and their respective casts were paraded out on stage to take a little bow (The Tick was among them, as well as Boston Public and something called "Untitled Michael Crichton Project" which, as near as I can tell, never ended up happening). It all had the palpable air of a glossy slave auction, with higher production values and better catering.

[adult swim] does things a little differently, thank God (though the catering was excellent). They're kind of the anti-network when it comes to stuff like this. Their Upfronts are an aloof month later than everyone else's, and the presentations are mercifully brief. A little bit of patter from some business guys, then Mike Lazzo--the ultimate anti-executive--talks for about ten minutes with a few ironic slides projected behind him...and it's all over. Then it just becomes a big party...with nary a Muniz nor a Setzer in sight.

The [adult swim] Upfronts were pretty fun, I have to say. In the past, they've been held in some big, dark club and it's been crazy crowded and loud with someone spinning the most invasive hip hop I've ever heard, but this time (to the chagrin of some, but not this reporter) it was in a well-lit, stylish art space and I could actually see and hear some of the people I attend these kinds of things to see and hear. And they're all actually really cool people. There is a genuine feeling amongst the creators of the [adult swim] programming that there is something special going on. That we're lucky to be with this network, at this time and place, because there are opportunities here that simply don't exist anywhere else on TV.

Sure, we creators love to gripe about how low our budgets are, or what time slot we got, or how disappointed we are about the promotion our little shows are or aren't getting...but ultimately, everyone's happy to be where they are. Take Seth Green--you'd think he's like a Hollywood guy. But he's happier than a pig in shit to be playing with dolls and goofing on Star Wars with Robot Chicken. Or Loren Bouchard--co-responsible for what I consider to be two of the best cartoons of the last ten years: Home Movies and Dr. Katz. He's now hard at work on the upcoming Lucy, Daughter of the Devil and seemingly loving every minute of it, despite numerous production hardships. I have a couple of friends who are just starting out at Adult Swim with the upcoming SuperJail, and I saw a New York underground cartoonist, whose work I'm a huge fan of, who told me he's about to sign a deal with the network. Say what you will about Tim & Eric (I like them quite a bit, personally), or 12 Oz. Mouse, or the addition of non-animation to the lineup in the form of Saul of the Mole People...[adult swim]'s doing some interesting stuff and they're way more experimental than any other network out there right now. They're really building on what they started with Space Ghost, Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Sealab in interesting and unexpected ways. Some good stuff is coming down the pike. And if some of the new stuff isn't your cup of tea, I promise you it will still be like nothing else you're going to see anywhere else. And there's something to be said for that.

I've worked a little bit for other shows and other networks, and part of me knows I will probably never have a job this good again. Maybe I'll make more money somewhere else in the future. Maybe I'll make something that gets a ton of advertising and press coverage, I don't know. But I'll most likely never have as much freedom and control over my own work as [adult swim] affords me.

And so, Production continues...

We've already gotten just a tad behind in production because the first episode I wrote (episode 27) was heavy on new designs and we have a lot of new people who are still wrapping their heads around our little non-system for doing things. Episode 28 is a bit lighter, though, taking place mostly in the Venture Compound, so we're sure to catch up. Never one to leave well enough alone, we're tweaking the designs for the Venture Compound here and there in an effort to make the place a little more logical, lavish and functional. This is a constant process of refinement, and the breakneck production schedule rarely allows you to get each room looking exactly the way you want it to the first time around. So, as always, if you see new stuff in old rooms next season...just pretend it was always there. We'll also be showing off some new areas of the compound no one's laid eyes on before, too, which is exciting in my myopic little world. We'll be recording episode 28 this week. And the storyboard for episode 27 is currently being drawn by Matt Peters, Stephen DeStefano and Rick Lacy, so that should be pretty hot!

So far, both episodes are sort of stand-alone stories, albeit ones laced with hearty doses of backstory and continuity. Doc's turning in his first two scripts back to back this week, one of which is the most uncharacteristically complex plot he's ever penned. The other promises to be this season's "Tag Sale--You're It!" I'm really happy with these stories so far and looking forward to directing them. It feels like Doc and I are hitting our stride, playing all the right notes and yet expanding upon and deepening the Venture universe. Things feel a little more open and easygoing or something...it's hard to explain. But with 27 1/2 of these under our belts already, it's like we can take certain chances with the narrative we couldn't before because we were still setting up the world. Now that we've got these first few solo efforts out of the way, we'll set about the task of writing a couple together, which always yields surprises and new directions, and more often than not our most successful episodes as we fill in each other's weaknesses and try to out-crazy each other.

Apparently our DVDs are selling very well...

We received many congratulations and were made aware of much excitement on the part of the network at the Upfronts. And, for those of you lamenting our lack of merchandising, this buzz is sure to begin translating into Venture-themed knick-knackery for you to proudly display on your bookshelf or person over the next year. But it's the little things that count: I finally feel vindicated because Kim's Video on St. Mark's Place decided to carry our DVD this time around. If you're not from here, Kim's is like the video Mecca in this town, and while they're not the biggest video store around, they're one of the best when it comes to scoring fringe and hard-to-find videos. I drop like a hundred bucks there every week, so it was disheartening when they didn't have the Season One DVD for sale, despite shelves full of stuff like ATHF and Wonder Showzen. I keep poking my head into the Virgin Megastore, too, and have been delighted to see us completely sold out of Seasons 1 & 2 one day, with reinforcements quickly arriving the next.

We Love You,
JP

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 04:15:34 GMT

Last week's eBay auction was a jaw-dropping success. My thanks to all of you who bid and congratulations to the winners. Your artwork shipped today, according to my silent partner-in-crime, and I certainly hope you're not disappointed. We even tucked in a modest little bonus item for everyone.

Production continues...
We're in our third week of production, which means the character/prop and background designers have started the second episode of the season (ep. 28 for anyone who's counting) and the storyboard artists have begun thumbnailing the first, which we also recorded yesterday. The production crew at the recording session actually outnumbered the voice actors for once--only James, Doc and myself recorded voices, and very few of the characters we're best known for got more than a line or two. I'll leave you to ponder that mystery, as it's a very atypical episode (and will not be the season 3 premier). We hope to record the second episode in the production lineup next week, with just about everyone in the cast present.

The Adult Swim "Upfronts" are tomorrow night here in New York, and Doc and I will be attending what always turns out to be an amusing and gala affair--full of free swag and awkward conversations. Head honcho Keith Crofford rolled into town a couple of days early, so we dined on Spanish food together last night and I had just a tad too much sangria. Good thing I got to work from home today. Presently writing my third script as Doc slaves away on his second and polishes up his first. After these, we'll probably write the premier episode or two together. For once we're starting a season out with probably more ideas than we can fit into thirteen episodes, so my morale is high. But I guess we'll see. We have a funny way of cramming three or four ideas into one episode that started their life as full episodes unto themselves, so I won't count too many chickens before too many hatchings.

Oh, and I might as well start plugging this now...

Liz Artinian is curating "Too Art 4 TV Too!", the second annual exhibition of artwork by the cream of the New York animation scene crop, which has its star-studded opening next Friday night, May 4th, at the Stay Gold Gallery here in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. So if you're in the New York area and can't get tickets to Spiderman 3, you should come and look at and/or buy some of the visual delights on display. The contributors are too numerous to name here (but not here), but many of their names will be familiar to fans of The Venture Bros.'s end credits, including yours truly.

It's been a good week in the land of Publick. Good auction, our DVD's are making people happy, I saw Jarvis Cocker put on an amazing show at Webster Hall, and I bought a new chair today. Really, what more could a boy want out of life?

Well, okay...maybe this

We Love You,

JP

SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION WEEK, PART III

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 22:44:12 GMT

Just a note to alert anyone who subscribes to the Sirius satellite radio network that Doc and I will be appearing tonight on OutQ 109's Derek & Romaine Show. I'm told we'll be on at 8pm. Which means we're missing Lost for this, so there had better be free soda or something.

As you can imagine, it's been an exciting week so far. I walked into the local Virgin Megastore to discover that not only did we receive our proper due on the "New Releases" rack this time around, but the "Twenty Years to Midnight" episode was playing on like ten different bigass flatscreen TV's around the store. And we seem to be doing very well on Amazon. Production's going well, the design kids are impressing and delighting me with their interpretations of the elements of the first script, we record next week...all is well.

Also:

An interview I did with Reason Magazine can be found here.

...a favorable review of The Venture Bros. Season 2 DVD from Toonzone.net can be found here.

...aaaand Doc's own electronic, content-enhancing, "Deep Inside 'Deep Inside AstroBase Go!'" can be found here. However, I must officially issue a SPOILER ALERT to those of you who have not watched the "Deep Inside AstroBase Go!" special feature of our new DVD.

We Love You,
JP

SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION WEEK, PT. II...

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 04:36:08 GMT

The Venture Bros. Season 2 DVD is now officially for sale!

To coincide with the release, I am making 14 of my original illustrations for the DVD packaging available at auction on eBay...

Big Monarch! (Wraparound Cover) – http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260108755779

Monarch & Phantom Limb (Back of Slipcase) – http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260108756903

Sexy Doc (Wraparound Cover) – http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260108758185

Molotov (Wraparound Cover) – http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260108759078

Seated Dr. Girlfriend (Wraparound Cover) – http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260108759423

Venture Bros. - Hank & Dean (Wraparound Cover) – http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260108759872

Phantom Limb Fully Armed (Wraparound Cover) – http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260108760297

Silhouette Doc Venture (Disc 2 Image) – http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260108760813

Lounging Dr. Girlfriend (Back Cover & Slipcase) – http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260108761438

Ünderbheit (Unused – Wraparound Cover) – http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260108762258

Brock’s Charger (Wraparound Cover) w/ – Inflatable Brock (Unused – Back Of Slipcase) - http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260108763641

Orpheus (Back Cover & Slipcase) – http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260108764410

X-1 (Wraparound Cover) – http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260108764964

---

All are signed, all were done in brush and ink, some with charcoal pencil as well. All but two (Ünderbheit, Inflatable Brock) were used in the final layouts. This seemed a much more democratic way to make them available, rather than bringing them to some convention on the other side of the country, or doling them out slowly so some rich jackass can outbid everyone else every single time*. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and with so many characters to choose from, there is almost guaranteed to be an illustration to suit every household decor! Happy bidding!

...and Thank You, on behalf of the Jackson Publick Vacation Fund...

We Love You,
JP

P.S. Thanks to everyone who posted the banners all over the interweb!

* Rich jackasses are still welcome to bid.

SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION WEEK BEGINS NOW!!!

Sat, 14 Apr 2007 23:22:16 GMT

Below are some banner ads for The Venture Bros. Season 2 DVD (available in a store near you this coming Tuesday!) that Doc cobbled together last night in hopes that some of you uber-fans out there with sites of your own might disseminate them across this world wide web of ours in the next few days, ideally linking them to the appropriate page of such notable online mercantiles as amazon.com or like a Best Buy or something. I offer no apology for this. No promise of monetary reward. Just a mild blush of embarrassment, a creased, massive brow, and our heartiest thanks to any and all who dare to accept this challenge.

(Our friend told us this was a good idea.)

We Love You,
JP

P.S. Next Time: Links to Venture Bros. original artwork eBay auctions.

¡Caliente!

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:30:37 GMT

For your viewing pleasure, courtesy of the internet and Quick Stop Entertainment, here is the short teaser promo for The Venture Bros. Season 2 DVD that Doc put together for our recent NY Comicon appearance.

And, crap! Last time I posted, I totally forgot to plug the podcast of an interview I did for Jesse Thorn's The Sound of Young America radio programme. Sorry, Jesse. Sorry, me.

PRODUCTION UPDATE: WEEK -2
We began pre-pre-production a week ago in the spacious new Chelsea headquarters of World Leaders Entertainment. The in-house staff of The Venture Bros. presently consists of me, Stephen DeStefano (Storyboard/Character & Prop Design Supervisor), George Fort (Background Design Supervisor), Liz Artinian (Color Supervisor) and Rachel Simon (producer). Basically we spent the last week trying to figure out or remember what our jobs are and where the hell Rachel packed everything. Our goal over the next couple of weeks before full production starts is to tweak some of the stock character and background models for the show till they become even more lovely and Korea-proof. I finished my first script over a week ago and am at various stages of development of three others. Doc's almost done with his first one and is also chipping away at a couple more. None of them are our season premier. We probably won't get to that script till next month.

But more importantly, I have painted my and Stephen's shared office a lovely shade of Benjamin Moore satin finish "Caliente". A zebra print area rug soon followed. Ikea bookcases, a TV and a new iMac are expected any day now.

We Love You,

JP

Thu, 08 Mar 2007 20:21:30 GMT

HOW I SPENT MY WINTER VACATION...
by Jackson Publick, grade 4

• Doing artwork for the The Venture Bros. Season 2 DVD cover
• Producing extra stuff for the DVD
• Being sick twice
• A week in Los Angeles, staying at my friend's drafty house, touring The Cartoon Network's Burbank facilities and asking a million questions about HD production, fruitlessly meeting with Hollywood types ("yeah, I might have time to do something in about a year and a half..."), getting tipsy with Brendon Small, Emilie Autumn, Keith Crofford, Dana Snyder, Ben Edlund and Phil Rynda.
• Purchasing or acquiring and subsequently viewing DVDs of every episode of every TV show I've missed in the past two years that anyone I know has referred to as "the best show on television" (The Wire, Battlestar Gallactica, 24, Heroes) and learning some of them were referred to as such rightly, some not.
• Watching a ton of Discovery Channel, Science Channel and History Channel specials.
• Planning a trip to Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris and Rome that I never took.
• Planning a trip to Jamaica I never took.
• Visiting car dealerships and sitting in new vehicles I cannot afford.
• Reading a few books (The Boy Detective Fails was the only memorable one of the bunch)
• Planning a feature film I'll probably never write.
• "Dream casting" aforementioned feature film.
• Eating a lot.
• Tolerating my dog.
• Pulling a back muscle while digging my car out of snow three days after I should have dug it out of snow–thus heralding my undesired approach to middle age because: A. that happened, and B. I now own a shovel.
• Attending NY Comicon (see below)
• Attending Tim & Eric's live show (see below)
• Seeing Badly Drawn Boy at Webster Hall.

NEW YORK COMICON
New York Comicon was successful for us. Doc and I were happily joined by James Urbaniak, Mike Sinterniklaas and Steven Rattazzi for an unstructured panel discussion before an audience of some two or three hundred adoring fans. We proceeded to avoid questions about season three and stammer through discussions about recording sessions, the creative process, and silky body hair. Despite suffering the indignity of not having his own name tag on the table (he got Paul Pope's from the previous panel), Doc concocted a little video commercial for the DVD release, which we projected at the beginning of the presentation so we wouldn't all be stuck sitting there, mouths drooping open, mumbling "uh...so...are there any questions?" Rather, his fine efforts managed to belay that awkward moment for at least three minutes.

To further stall the inevitable, we officially announced what you all knew was true already: that Season 3 has been greenlit, we are currently trying to write it, and production will begin (in World Leaders Entertainment's new Chelsea headquarters, which promise to be comparatively plush) on April 9th. We also announced that Season 4 has technically been greenlit as well (the network basically committed to it, but we won't be treating seasons 3 & 4 as one big, 26 episode order because we just don't swing that way. Doc and I—to say nothing of the rest of the crew—will most likely need rest and replenishment after these next 13, given our style of hands-on micromanagement and limited wells of creativity). Hopefully that means there will be a much shorter break between the next two seasons than we've experienced in the past. Don't hold me to that, though.

The rest of my time at the convention was spent chatting up the delightful fans (thanks for another Kennedy-themed novelty gift, by the way...you know who you are), browsing (God of War II looks pretty fun), and hanging out with Zander and Shad from Big Time Attic.

The night after that, Tim & Eric were in town to perform their goofy live show at The Knitting Factory, which was the most tightly packed, humid little stew of human bodies and body odors I've ever witnessed and, from my limited view between columns and the heads of taller audience members, was pretty funny and strange. Chinese food with Tim and not Eric but Eric Fensler was a welcome respite.

AND SO, BACK TO WORK...
Doc and I are in training for the upcoming production marathon that will be Season 3 of The Venture Bros. Rising no later than 5:30am (EST), our regimen consists of various isometric exercises, wind sprints, calisthenics, and spirited games of steal-the-bacon followed by a "power shake" of Pixie Stix and coffee, for protein.

And we'll need that protein, because this initial writing phase is always difficult. The start of a new season is a parade of paralyzing possibilities—a tug of war between paradoxical, insecure thoughts of "how are we possibly going to come up with 13 new stories?" and "where am I going to put all these ideas?"—as hundreds of random thoughts, jokes, chunks of dialogue, half-baked plots and doodles fill up your notebook, post-its, stray pieces of printer paper and available napkins, then jockey for the pole position in your personal writing queue. You look them over. You look at some of last year's unused material. You turn them over in your head. You kind of wait anxiously for one of them to stand out from the rest, take off in your imagination and roll downhill collecting more details and colliding into other ideas to start formulating a genuine story with a theme and B plots and everything—because until then you're just a scatterbrained mess who both loves and loathes every idea that pours out of your head. And then the real work starts; hammering the ideas into a script, some of which, on closer examination, don't deserve to be one. Others are too fecund and beg to be turned into a 90 minute special to properly tell their stories, and thus much prioritization and amputation must occur to sqeeze them into the alotted 22+ minutes. This is the fun and the drag of it all. Oddly enough, Doc and I actually haven't had much contact in the past few weeks. We seem to prefer to write on our own and then convene when we've got something ready to turn in. A tender spirit of competition enters the picture. At this point, we're writing to amuse ourselves first and foremost, and to crack each other up secondly. You people, the audience, are a distant third. No offense.

So what's gonna happen this season? We couldn't tell you if we wanted to. I've definitely got a short list of characters we neglected last season who I'd like to hit harder this time around, as well as a list of characters I'm personally boycotting for at least the first part of the season. And then there are some new guys and gals we're hoping to breathe life into. Hopefully it'll be great. You should watch them when they come on TV.

PRODUCTION
We'll be starting some of our supervisors a few weeks early to get their teams in order and revise some of our main models (no major overhauls this time—just some tweaking, and creation of much-needed expression sheets for the storyboard artists to follow). I'm pleased to welcome comic book and animation luminary Stephen DeStefano back into the Venture fold. Stephen storyboarded some of our best and most memorable sequences in season one but, except for a couple of scenes in the finale episode, wasn't available to work on season 2. Now he's back, as our Storyboard Director and supervisor of the character/prop design department. Presently we're in the process of staffing the rest of the crew, trying to find the best of the available best of the New York animation "scene." And then there's that move to a new studio space I mentioned. We're all looking forward to the exodus from the cramped, poorly-ventilated 5th Avenue headquarters (with lovely views, I'll give it that) to the more spacious and raw facility in Chelsea, where I will have a bigger office and a bigger window, through which I'll see less scenery.

The bad news about production is you won't be seeing any new episodes until probably this time next year, since we won't start getting them back from Korea until around the first of the year or so. Such is the nature of traditional cel animation. We did experiment with concocting a super-hurry-up production schedule that would enable us to air the first four episodes of Season 3 in December, but that proved pointless because we would end up with a frustrating, Lost-like scenario wherein the season would be broken up by a three month hiatus, just when it was getting interesting (unlike Lost). Also, I've been informed that nobody really watches much TV in December and the ratings suck.

SPEAKING OF 2008
The fine people of Rizzoli have seen fit to produce a Venture Bros. Wall Calendar to commemorate that upcoming year. We've been working with them to find the best possible hi-res stills from the animation to illustrate it, and the graphic design of the thing will closely resemble the themes of the Season 2 DVD.

PLUG
Venture Bros. background painter Liz Artinian is currently organizing Too Art for TV Too!, the second of what's fast becoming an annual art event here in the city; an exhibition showcasing the personal work of dozens of New York artists who work in the animation industry. Last year's opening was tremendously successful and well-attended, with people exhibiting everything from oil paintings to original comic book pages to toys and silkscreened posters—most of which was for sale. This year's promises to be even more diverse, with twice as many contributors. Amongst them are many a Venture Bros. alumnus, including yours truly, if I get off my ass and start my piece. More on that closer to the date of the opening.

Last year, I personally scored a supercool and massive pencil drawing of no fewer than 200 alien cat warriors being slaughtered in battle by two giant alien robots, which hangs above my bed as a testament to the OCD and chemical intake of the gifted Christy Caracas, who co-created a very bizarre pilot for [adultswim] called SuperJail, which should be airing in a couple of months. I think I did a voice or two for it. Well, I definitely did, but I won't know if they used my takes until I get to see the finished pilot at their wrap party tonight.

ANYHOW...
With no new Venture images to share because we're not in production yet, I leave you with some of the rejected rough designs for The Venture Bros. Season 2 DVD packaging, simply because they'll never see the light of day otherwise and I like them. Drawings by me, layout & design by Liz Artinian, Duke Aber and me respectively. (The image at the head of this entry is a rough of the approved image for the back cover of the DVD slipcase, by me and Duke Aber)

We Love You,
--JP

P.S. Saw two pretty great films this week. Zodiac and An Unreasonable Man. Highly recommend both, though the latter will be much harder to track down (it was only playing in one small theater in New York) but well worth the effort. Even if you're one of those people who's still sore at Nader for the 2000 election (don't bother--be sorer at Florida and the other 49% of voters)

Happy New Year!

Fri, 05 Jan 2007 03:22:34 GMT

...and many thanks to those of you out there (Clare and Amber among you) who surprised us with holiday gift packages here at the Astrobase. One gift was especially baffling: apparently purchased at some sort of Asian street market, it featured a small bowl of what appears to be wax, perched atop a gold cardboard pedestal, and festooned with a cellophane lobster. Was it a candle? If so, why no wick? Was it marzipan? Well, turn the box over and there, in a language neither Doc nor I are able to read, is a nutritional information label (the right column of which was full of "0%"s). Being braver than I, Doc gnawed into it and quickly learned that it was wax. Which still doesn't explain the lobster, or the lack of a wick, or the nutritional information. This is just the kind of inexplicable gift the Astrobase welcomes with open arms, unlike the blowjob a shadowy man in a cowboy hat offered me as I unloaded the trunk of my car upon my return from Christmas in Boston. Speaking of giving...

Here's a sneak peek at the finished art for the Venture Bros. Season 2 DVD interior wraparound cover; a colorful, retro collision of my illustrations and the design stylings of Duke Aber down at Williams Street. The DVD project is nearly complete--after an exhausting month and a half of work, we're delivering the special features this week, including:

• Commentary by Doc and Me on all episodes, plus special appearances by James Urbaniak or Mike Sinterniklaas on a few)
• Deleted Scenes (some from animatics, some from finished animation)
• "Deep Inside AstroBase Go!" informative super-documentary about the inner workings of the fabled space station/animation studio, as narrated by Master Billy Quizboy and Pete White
• Surround Sound

...and you can already pre-order it from amazon.com

The original cover illustrations are all individual ink wash drawings, about 8 1/2 x 11", and I might make some of them available for sale on eBay or something in the coming months, if anyone's interested.

Speaking of eBay, in lieu of any real merchandising, one can now bid on a rare Venture Bros.-related item of distinction: a poster designed by Doc Hammer for this year's Gonzo FilmFest at DragonCon (see earlier entry for details of that evening's shenanigans), which we both signed in silver Sharpie. Surely that beats a clumsy heat-transfer bootleg t-shirt, no?

Oh, and we've begun writing Season 3...

We Love You,
JP

Mon, 25 Dec 2006 04:54:27 GMT

It's time to put the baby in the manger, and click here for your gift...

We Love You,
JP

Very Little Rest for the Wicked...

Thu, 30 Nov 2006 06:05:15 GMT

Hello again, everyone, after a long spell of silence. Far from being as inactive as I've appeared, there is Plenty Going On--but not much I can talk about yet. Big Plans being discussed in dark places. Idle machinery being oiled and slowly creaking back to life, etc. etc.

What I can tell you is that the Venture Bros. Season Two DVD is presently scheduled to be released April 17, 2007. Doc and I are grinding out all the supplemental materials as I write this--we've recorded commentary for every episode (some with James Urbaniak and Mike Sinterniklaas as our very special guests) which we can guarantee will be even less entertaining and more off-topic than the last set's; we're filming some live action stuff which promises to have fewer bad costumes and more dazzling special effects, and we've compiled some 30 deleted "scenes" in various states of dis-animation, many of which you'll be glad we cut but some of which are pretty funny. You are already shouting "oh boy!" I know.

Hot damn but there's never been a better time to buy The Venture Bros. Season One DVD, though, as Amazon has slashed its price to match that of my cab ride home from the Astrobase. This is, no doubt, the sole reason for our sudden leap back into their Top 50.

In lieu of super-insider news or spectacular preview art, I give you the following list...

These people all made Season 2 of The Venture Bros. possible and/or bearable. THANK THEM!

Joanna Adler
Kimson Albert
Liz Artinian
Mia Barron
Jennifer Batinich
Tom Bayne
H. Jon Benjamin
Paul Boocock
Mike Borkowski
Peter Brown
Peter Browngardt
Michael Cahill
Rachel Chancey
Stephen Colbert
Tom Conner
Nisa Contreras
Keith Crofford
Nick DeMayo
Stephen DeStefano
Michelle Dickens
Luciano DiGeronimo
Marina Dominis
Ben Edlund
Jakob Escobedo
Ray Feldman
Terrence Fleming
Mike Foran
Chris George
Sue Gilad
Tiny Girlfriend
Nathan Graf
Doc Hammer
Lisa Hammer
Nina Hellman
Matthew I. Jenkins
Kwok W. "Jamison" Kwan
Rick Danger-Lacy
Mike Lazzo
Douglas Lovelace
Ron Lynch
Sal Mallimo
Kim Manning
Miguel Martinez-Joffre
Bob McNeil
Roger Mejia
Carly Monardo
Siobhan Mullen
Linda Nettleship
Bosco Ng
Charles Parnell
Dave Paterson
Goldfeld Payne
Ken Plume
Bill Presing
Ian Jones-Quartey
Vishal Roney
Steven Rattazzi
Dan Root
Rafael Rosado
Jonathan Roscetti
Jeremy Rosenberg
Phil Rynda
Rachel Simon
Bill Sienkiewicz
Mike Sinterniklaas
Brendon Small
T. Ryder Smith
Dana Snyder
Soul-bot
Jennifer Stephens
Freya Tanz
J.G. Thirlwell
Anthony Tortoricci
Vinh Truong
James Urbaniak
Damian Volpe
Patrick Warburton
Martin Wittig
Alex Woo

...and Thank YOU all, for watching the show we made this year. Your support and affection for our little enterprise continues to amaze and embarrass us in the most wonderful of ways.

We Love You,
JP

P.S. If you're on the above list but you're not hotlinked and you have a site you want to plug, let me know. Likewise, if you'd like to be removed from the list, send an email with this entire entry as the subject line to: unsubscribe@venturebros.com

Nothing to Report

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 15:37:07 GMT

Nothing much doing in Venture World this week. Just felt like posting some sketches of terror suspects done for the most recent episode's newspaper exposition sequence (some of them used, some not) because I rarely post my own work. And I've been in a doodling mood lately, now that I don't have to do any professional drawing for a while, so it kind of complements that.

As for the show, Doc and I are editing the second to last episode, "Showdown at Cremation Creek," which we have a tight deadline on for obvious reasons. Made tighter still because Doc still has a lot of "censoring" to do on the previous episode before it goes to final output for the network (yes, more penises to blur and black out, and some female parts this time, too. Full frontal male nudity somehow became the running thing this season. A step up from season one's urine gags...). And we have to record a song for this one, super-quick.

The Dunny I painted for Kid Robot's Paint Ball Auction seems to have fetched a respectable price, so thanks to whoever bid on that.

Other than that, I'm just reading and watching a lot of movies lately. The Illusionist was a big disappointment...mostly because it was so unimaginatively shot. Then again, I watched a DVD of The Parallax View the night before, in which every single shot is a lingering, beautifully composed image, so perhaps I was a little too hard on it. Still, I'm betting The Prestige, which comes out next month, will be much better (I just can't resist a turn-of-the-century magician movie, and I read the book years ago). I liked Inside Man, though.

We Love You,
JP

P.S. UPDATE: A while ago, adultswim.com sent us some questions which were apparently sent in by viewers and those who frequent their website. Doc and I have answered them, and you can view said answers HERE.

Been a long time since we rock n' rolled...

Fri, 08 Sep 2006 07:46:15 GMT

Things have been both busy and not. We're still doing post-production on this season's episodes, but that keeps Doc far busier than me. Really I just go in for retakes and the final two days of editing, plus the sound mixes, so I have a lot more time on my hands. Attempting to fill it with side projects, home improvement, and research for a possible non-Venture screenplay, but I'm sort of in that withdrawal phase I go through at the end of any protracted period of intense work--I kind of don't know what to do with my down time and just get depressed and lethargic. Probably my body's and mind's way of telling me I need to recuperate from such a difficult season. So even though a relatively speedy Season 3 pickup is blowin' in the wind (if not official yet), it will probably be a little while before we regroup, get our heads together, and start writing more episodes.

DRAGON CON:
Doc and I have just returned from DragonCon in Atlanta...and boy, are our arms tired. Mostly from signing things and waving to one another from across crowded rooms with one hand while holding a cell phone with the other, into which we're shouting "over here! I'm over here. To the left...Where did you go?!" While not quite as fun and diverse as the San Diego Comicon for me (I'm more of a comics guy than a dragon guy, I have to say), it was once again our pleasure to meet some of our more die-hard fans, particularly the Henchwench herself, founder and purveyor of The People's Republic of Venture. Aside from setting up a Venture fan booth and spreading the good word via all manner of stickers, flyers and lunchboxes bought on her own dime, she took the time to make us each a little care baggie filled with fattening snacks and hard to find soft drinks. We also received gifts of drawings from several fans, took pictures with dozens more, and had our picture taken with a guy dressed chillingly accurately like Doctor Venture, who seemed blessedly ignorant of our identities and more than a little put off by our intrusion upon his DragonCon duties (for overblown coverage of this minor event, go to adultswim.com).

We did a pair of well-received panel discussions--one solely for Venture Bros. (which I barely made it to, having missed my earlier flight down there and gotten on standby for a later one) and one en masse Adult Swim panel with a bunch of the other creative minds behind all of your other favorite snarky late night cartoons.

The highlight of the convention was definitely the needcoffee.com film festival on Saturday night--a marathon of strange short films and cartoons orchestrated by Honorary Astrobase Cadet Ken Plume, in which we unveiled to a ravenous crowd the splendor that is "I Know Why the Caged Bird Kills," an upcoming Venture Bros. episode that won't see air for several more weeks. Aside from that, we enjoyed hanging out with the Williams Street kids on their own turf, and thrilled to Dana Snyder's tales of skullduggery and racketeering down in the "Walk of Fame" (the room where dozens of C list actors peddle their signatures for $20 or more). My greatest score was a t-shirt featuring an drawing of character actor Tom Atkins and simply the word "Atkins," which Tom personally fetched from the display wall behind him at great personal risk atop an unstable folding chair.

I don't personally have any pictures from DragonCon, but Doc has more patience with this kind of thing than I (and fewer qualms about seeing bad pictures of himself) so check out his myspace "soulbot" page in the next few days, and I'm just betting he'll have culled some from the interweb to display on his blog therein.

ON AN UNRELATED FRONT:

I contributed a fully painted "Dunny" figure to Kid Robot's "Paint Ball" charity auction to benefit the Save the Children Federation. Basically, they send out a bunch of blank, white figures to some "celebrities" and graffitti artists, who then tart them up with spray paint and paint markers and what have you. Then they auction these off. For whatever reason (I have no one to blame but myself), I was under the mistaken belief these things were only like two or three inches tall and thought "no problem." When mine arrived, it was nearly two feet in height. So if you want the only hand-painted piece of Venture Bros. "merchandise" (actually, the only piece of Venture Bros. merchandise, period.) and you'd like to help out a good cause, go bid on it on eBay. Or tell a rich friend who loves charity to do so and then have him/her give it to you because you just gave them a tax write-off.

VENTURE BROS. NEWS:

We're on iTunes!

I know I'm late in pointing this out, but it's been a while since I posted, and that's kind of a big deal. The customer reviews have thusfar been glowing (except for a handful of illiterates who will only be satisfied if iTunes starts selling episodes of Inuyasha) and hopefully we're reaching a whole new audience.

PRODUCTION NEWS:
We've recently turned in "Guess Who's Coming to State Dinner?" and "I Know Why the Caged Bird Kills" and are presently editing Ben Edlund's contribution to the season, "¡Viva Los Muertos!" which is a bitch because the first few scenes are very long, continuous pieces of animation, so fixing anything that's wrong with them requires tedious rendering time just to see if our fixes worked. And the overseas studio apparently suffered some sort of massive system crash, so retakes have been coming in slowly.

Just today, however, we received Korea's first take of the season finale episode. Looks pretty good--full of action, secret revelations, surprise guest stars, and all the usual cast of lovable cartoon pals. Spent the day calling retakes, of course, but that's nothing new.

We were back with "Fallen Arches" last weekend, and this Sunday we're premiering "Guess Who's Coming to State Dinner?" featuring the return of Bud Manstrong, which nobody asked for, but you're getting it. Then we're in reruns for a week, followed by "I Know Why the Caged Bird Kills" and the last three episodes of the season, but good god we're going to be cutting it really close on those last two...so keep your fingers crossed or there could be more reruns in our mutual televised future.

RANDOM RESPONSES TO YOUR RANDOM QUERIES:
In response to some of the queries posted on this journal (and elsewhere) "Victor. Echo. November" was indeed produced before "Assassinanny 911" and it was only later we chose the order the episodes were to run in (we did--not the network--so blame us). For some of them, it was obvious--"Powerless in the Face of Death" had to run first, "Hate Floats" second--but most of the others could run in any old order, with some exceptions along the way. We thought about the storylines, the characters' development, the little bits of season story arc; we thought about which ones packed the biggest punch; we decided to alternate Doc's episodes and mine as much as possible, and to alternate Monarch and non-Monarch episodes to keep him from getting played out. The one little detail we forgot about in regards to these two episodes was Kim, Triana's techno-Goth friend. She's obviously met Hank and Dean already in "Assassinanny 911," which aired a month ago, but is only just being introduced to them in last night's episode. Our bad. Neither of us picked up on it till the former episode aired, at which point Doc, just as guilty as I, cried "foul!" because he didn't want me to get credit for his Fred from Scooby Doo joke, which I'd unintentionally scooped him on...when it was meant as a "callback." Oh, well...

In retrospect, "Love-Bheits" (the first episode produced this season) probably should have aired before "20 Years to Midnight" because of the reference to the Impossible family dressing up as the Fantastic Four, since I doubt they'd be engaging in a whole lot of fun family interaction after the latter's events.

As for your questions regarding "20 Years to Midnight" and Jonas Jr.'s "sourpussin'," the answer is: he feels guilty for taking advantage of a junky and writing him a fake prescription just to get what he wanted out of him. There were originally a couple more lines to that scene which explained that a little better, but the episode was a good deal over time and we had to cut something. We thought his moral dilemma was self-explanatory, given the ruse he and the Captain put on in their prior scene, but I guess not. To put it in perspective, that script was 6 pages over the limit; the original audio slug was about four minutes too long; and the finished animation was about a minute too long. Something had to go, and now we've got two scenes for the "deleted scenes" special feature in the season 2 DVD.

SPEAKING OF THE SEASON 2 DVD...
We just started talking to the network about the dvd project and are tossing around special features and packaging ideas with an eye toward a March release, I think (don't quote me on this...these things always change). The deleted scenes should generally be a bit more compelling on the next set than they were on the Season 1 set, since Doc's being really good about saving all the original animation in separate files this time for just that purpose. Also, Dave Paterson has been doing full 5.1 Surround Sound mixes for each episode in addition to the standard TV stereo mix, so the DVDs should sound great, as God intended them to.

Lastly...I'M AN UNCLE!

This li'l pink dynamo came into the world last Friday, and though my brother claims she looks like neither him nor his wife, her baby pictures, to me, are strikingly similar to both his and mine. Pray she doesn't inherit whatever recessive gene granted me my forehead...

We love you,
JP

P.S. Check out the movie Brick, which just came out on DVD or is about to. It's pretty great.