NYCC’12: VENTURE BROS!
Written by: Gary M. Kenny, CC2K Comics Editor
Your favorite Jonny Quest wanna bes are back! Hank and Dean are gearing up for season 5 airing on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim. CC2K had the pleasure to talk to the show’s creators, actors, and writers: Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer.
It’s been a two year wait and we’re only getting 10 episodes, one of which is a split episode, so 9 episodes. But fear not Venture Brother lovers because directly after the end of season 5, Cartoon Network announced season 6 will follow. NYCC is the Santa Claus of the pop culture world during the fall season and one of the greatest gifts I received there was 20 minutes with Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer. Doc Hammer is a rock star (literally), he is decked out with awesome ink, cool hair, sporting some killer shades. Jackson Publick is personality galore, quick, funny, and spewing charm. These are the men responsible for the Venture Bros, one of the wackiest shows on, if not the mecca of Adult Swim.
CC2K: When you guys return again in 2013, what can we expect to happen in season 5?
Doc Hammer: More Venture Brothers!
Jackson Publick: You can actually expect it to start exactly where it left off.
CC2K: How many episodes are in this season?
Jackson Publick: The order was for 10, but technically it’s 9 since the premiere is an hour long and we had to take up two (TV) slots with it. The Halloween special is one of those 10, so we will rerun it during the season.
Doc Hammer: It (the Halloween special) works during the season. The premiere actually takes place / starts before Halloween and ends after. So technically the premiere takes place within the episode.
CC2K: So more a less an episode within an episode.
Jackson Publick: More or less. Hahaha that doesn’t sound like a great deal after waiting two years for a season. Especially now that it’s 9 episodes.
Doc Hammer: But you get season six directly after that! We are going to slide right into that.
Jackson Publick: We really want to start season 6 really soon with another long formed special. We think that “special” between season 5 & 6 will bridge the two seasons.
Doc Hammer: That’s our dream.
CC2K: Now that you are on your 5th season. What is the writing procedure like?
Jackson Publick: We have really obscure outlines.
Doc Hammer: Outlines are nuts! They are color coded and everything. Jackson prints his out.
Jackson Publick: Ya, I print mine out. If I get further and further into the draft, I have to keep reading it on paper to make notes on it.
Doc Hammer: See I read mine off the screen, so all my notes are made in my outline.
Jackson Publick: We are also at a point, five seasons in, that we’ll just go: “The boys aren’t in this one.” It doesn’t matter anymore.
Doc Hammer: Ya, we can survive if the “boys aren’t in this one.”
Jackson Publick: We have a pretty wide field of characters now, that we seem to be able to hold an episode with.
CC2K: So the title characters won’t be the focus as much in this season?
Doc Hammer: We are more diligent on making sure Doc is always around.
Jackson Publick: We felt like we didn’t give him enough screen time last season. We tried to focus on him a little more this time around.
Doc Hammer: Plus this show has so much to do with him. It’s a very Doc centric show. Even though we go off on tangents and events that have no barrings on the show. That’s going to happen, we cannot stop ourselves.
CC2K: Will we see more of the boy’s journey into manhood?
Jackson Publick: Yes, I mean that’s kind of the story of the show now. They get older every year and they change every year. Dean in particular is effect by the things that happened last season and is reacting to that. Hank is steady as a rock.
Doc Hammer: Their wants and needs have changed. But as far as them being level balanced people…
Jackson Publick: Kind of like a crazy person, they are happy being who they are in the world they are live in.
Doc Hammer: Like a test pilot or an astronaut. “Huh oh we are crashing, guess we are going to die now.”
CC2K: Will we get another Henchmen 21 centric episode?
Jackson Hammer: Oh yes, you will be getting a lot of him.
Doc Hammer: There are a lot of arcs in our show and 21 is from: nobody-geek to conifident-powerful-geek. 21 is one of our long arcs. We will be following him for a very long time.
I would just like to thank Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, and the Venture Brothers team (Doc and Jackson) for the oppurtunity and time to speak with you. You can watch Venture Brothers on Adult Swim every Sunday night. Be on the look out for the next season and hopefully the t-shirt club (if and when it gets started).
Click on the audio file to hear Doc and Jackson talk about their Fanbase, gift ideas, and their thoughts about bringing back the shirt club.
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