venture bros

I suppose that the only reason that anyone releases audio on vinyl anymore is to either evoke some kind of ultra-hipness, to execute something very high-concept, or under that debatable claim that vinyl holds a superior, more genuine aural experience. I don’t know from needles vibratin’ or digi-bits flyin’ through laserbeams, but I’m glad that there are still those folks who are producing LPs in the oldschool fashion. I am forever a collector, and I’d hate to think that LPs were a finite thing.

My love of vinyl, combined with my favorite animated series, The Venture Bros., is just impossible to resist. This week, [adult swim] & Willliams Street released the first volume in The Venture Bros. soundtrack collection, alongside the Season Three DVD set. The Blu-Ray set comes with the soundtrack, but us DVD holdouts were forced into purchasing the music separately. We also have the option of choosing CD or vinyl, which is lovely.

Because of the physical limitations of vinyl, the record copy holds fewer songs than the CD, forcing the collector to make a serious decision : do I opt out of hearing the full compliment of songs for want of hipness and an awesome record to display, or do I go for the far more practical, and less expensive, copy on CD?

The vinyl format suits the retro-weird Jonny Quest world that The Venture Bros, takes place in, revolving around two boys who are relatively sequestered in a scientific compound from the 60s, and learn all that there is to know about the world via experimental sleep chambers that haven’t been updated in 30 years. So, I’d like to think that the vinyl release isn’t an effort towards forced coolness, but more like finding an artifact from that show – something dusty from the back of Doc Venture’s closet, or wedged between Brock’s Zep albums. Ultimately though, it’s a collectible, plain and simple. I didn’t join the Venture Bros. Shirt Of The Month Club because I have 12 different bodies that need to be clothed at the same time. I collect stuff about stuff I like.

It’s a hyperactive, funky soundtrack. And I love it. Reading the liner notes reveals that soundtrack artist JG Thirlwell is the musical powerhouse between any number of neat ‘bands’, from Foetus to Manorexia and Steroid Maximus. The particular Steroid Maximus CD referenced in the liner notes as playing a vital role in the formation of the energy and direction of the cartoon itself, Quilombo, is very out of print. Sealed copies sell from anywhere between $50 and $150 bucks, depending on where you look, and that price will surely shift upwards as Thirlwell finds a whole new audience via the cartoon.

At the moment, the LP release is only available via the Williams Street shop, as is the unannounced 5th volume of Space Ghost DVDs (which hasn’t been in wide distribution since Volume 4). I’m holding out, but I don’t think that my resolve or newfound affection for practicality will last too much longer. It is, after all, modern vinyl, and [adult swim] has a history of releasing stuff on ‘dead’ formats, like last year’s ‘Casey & His Brother’ cassette tape. So, the weird formats live on where appropriate, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

As a collector (and this almost goes without saying, folks), I crave collectibles. If I fall a little in love with a fictional character, I want a monument in plastic or fabric that I might be able to hold onto. I need the tactile sensation of something to prove my unrelenting adulation. I need to stick it on top of the TV and watch it collect dust as I forget it exists out of familiarity, and become re-enthralled with it when I dust it off and notice it again. This is how it works. I can explain the actions, but not the machinations.

In terms of collectible items from The Venture Bros. cartoon, shown very late at night on Cartoon Network’s [adult swim] block of mature programming, there’s been almost nothing. The show’s creators, Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick, play their merchandising rights pretty close. If I wanted to hold onto something concrete, I was limited to DVD sets, or two small PVC figures released by Kid Robot, done in the form of supervillian The Monarch and his beau, Dr. Girlfriend. Action figure nerds customize figures of the Venture clan and the bizarre, exciting rogues gallery of the Ventureverse, and even the t-shirt offerings have been shady.

Not even the simplest of all branded collectibles, the coffee mug, has been offered. On Monday night, Jackson Publick’s LiveJournal sprung a surprise on me, and the Venture website, Astrobase Go! announced the Amazing Shirt of the Week Club. I’m sure I backed away from the computer and flailed my arms wildly like one of those car dealership wind-powered tube men and made a noise that likely scared (or romantically attracted) most of the wildlife in the surrounding environs. When I regained my composure, I clicked on in.

I’ve blogged here before about my ever-growing collection of t-shirts, even though I have big ideas about dressing like an adult someday. If maturity is an eventual goal of mine, I’m sure that wearing t-shirts isn’t the biggest part of the problem. We’ll deal with the piles of colorful action-dolls that I have scattered around me first, and I can use my charmingly receding hairline as a testament to my true age, which is ‘perpetual curmudgeon’. Well, I’m now (or will be) 14 more shirts away from maturity. Maybe 14 Venture Bros. t-shirts is too many. Maybe you should mind your own business.

Starting this Sunday, June 1st, the third season of The Venture Bros. will begin on TV, and continue uninterrupted every Sunday for 13 weeks. Each week, Astrobase Go! will reveal a new shirt, which will be based on something within the episode itself. They’re not going to be screenshots from the episode, or narrative illustrations – but they will be imaginary logos, phrases and the like. Each shirt will be for sale for one week only, and when the end of the week rolls around, your opportunity to buy the shirt is over. Shirts retail for $22 each, but if you subscribe to the whole Club package, the shirts balance out to less than $18 each (which includes shipping), and you also get an exclusive shirt which isn’t otherwise offered for sale individually.

Limited edition? Exclusive? Venture Bros? T-shirt? All of these aspects tickle me in ways that get right into my pockets and gently pry open my wallet, and even caress my leg a little on the way out. So, not only do we have a new Venture episode every week, which is a glorious reward unto itself, but we’re now treated to episode-specific collectibles – one for every episode. Because of the low profile and sheer unexpectedness of this Venture Shirt Club, I anticipate that these early shirts will prove to be highly collectible, not unlike certain out-of-print Threadless t-shirts and other wearables (such as sneakers), so they’ll likely find a good, pricey place in the secondary market. The club’s first official shirt features the logo for The Guild of Calamitous Intent, printed in gold ink over a black shirt, which satisfies my gold-on-black shirt fetish, and partially quells my pain for missing an awesome Sun Ra shirt over at Threadless some months ago.

The shirts will be printed on soft, thin (but strong!) American Apparel material, which is something that Threadless recently started progressing towards also. If everything goes accordingly, they hold a print very well, and they’re softer than your average shirt. And if they have the faces of crazy robot-eyed bad guys on ‘em, all the better.

Only two shirts of the potential 14 have been revealed, so I really must be an easy mark to buy such a large quantity of things sight unseen, but I’m excited for having weirdly talismanic, obscure icons of the things I love to wear, and when it’s presented as a complete collection of something, there’s nothing you could do to keep me away.

After spending a whole day shopping at NYCC, I decided that I wanted to experience the full Comic Con Experience, which meant attending events that weren’t on the main floor (as well at eating from vending machines and getting smacked across the face with a backpack full of hardcover comics). Luckily, Saturday had a numbed of panels in isolated meeting rooms.

[ Example of a panel ]

If you’ve never been to a ‘panel’, here’s how it goes : a handful of professionally related people sit at a long table with microphones and bottles of water. In a small meeting room, you might get squished into a folding chair in between a couple of larger gentlemen with breathing problems. If you end up in a theater, you’d be pretty lucky to get a seat where you could still see the stage without a telescope. The assembled professionals talk about an aspect of their trade or craft, and the audience asks questions. This lasts for about 30 minutes, or until the room gets hot and sweaty, and everyone squeezes out when it’s all over. Being given new and exclusive information is not an unpleasant experience, but the ‘panel’ is almost always a static, stilted presentation, with rare exceptions. PowerPoint never helps anything, guys, unless you’re trying to sap my will to live.

On today’s schedule was ‘DC and Mattel‘ (a discussion of the ongoing line of DC Universe Classics action figures), a discussion with Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, a panel featuring talent from Hellboy II, and a panel with the creators and voice actors from The Venture Bros. – my favorite cartoon of all time. Fortunately, and against all odds and disorganization, I made it into all four events, but not without a great deal of trouble and uncertainty.

The ‘DC and Mattel‘ panel was held in the aforementioned hot, unventilated little room and featured members of DC marketing team, a few members of the popular sculpting team of The Four Horsemen, and a brand manager for DC Comics. The assembled crowd was given a PowerPoint presentation that featured lists and images of some of the upcoming DCUC and JLU figures, each ‘new’ item being greeted with the suitable ‘ooh!’ and ‘aah!’, or silence if the pictured item was a re-paint or re-release of something else.

We were informed that the JLU line (seen here in our gallery) has shifted from a kid-centric line towards being a collectors’ line, and as such, it would begin to feature characters that were never actually IN the show but are popular with fans anyhow. The line would also be sold exclusively at Target. Upcoming JLU figures include a great Jack Kirby-inspired ‘New Gods’ box set of six that will include characters like Forager and Lashina. Also new will be a classic Batman (in his blues and greys), Galatea (essentially, Power Girl in cartoon form), Captain Atom, a re-release of the rare Gorilla Grodd, and a San Diego Comic Con exclusive Giganta – in both ‘normal sized’ and ‘enormous’ forms. As someone who’s still seeking a few rare figures (and finding them, years after release, due to strange distribution), this was exciting stuff.

Mattel also revealed details about upcoming DCUC figures (also pictured here), which include Batman Beyond, Captain Atom (in two variants), and amazingly huge Ares, and a collect-and-connect Despero. Wonder Woman (from Wave 4) will have an Artemis variant, and there will also be a Wal-Mart exclusive wave, which will include Amazo, The Atom, The Riddler, Black Lightning, Eradicator Superman, and a collect-and-connect Brainiac. Anyone who’s collected toys for a while will shudder at the very mention of anything being exclusive to Wal-Mart, because ‘Wal-Mart Exclusive’ equates to ‘impossible to find and expensive on eBay’ – but Mattel assured the crowd that the wave will ship consistently throughout the year, alongside regular figures. Toys ‘R’ Us will also be getting an exclusive 2-pack of Lightray and an unmasked Orion, as well as a 2-pack of some Batman re-releases. We were also shown a glimpse of Hawkman.

The biggest news, however, is the release of a SDCC Exclusive Lobo. Now, Lobo is a fun character with a hilariously ultra-violent background. Because of this, DC avoids making toys of him at almost any cost, because they just don’t want to present the character to children if they can help it. Because the SDCC environment isn’t general retail, and assumed to be a mostly-collector event, Lobo will be sold there and only there. However, once the NY crowd collectively moaned and frothed at the Mattel brand manager, he promised to make the figure available online also.

Questions were fielded regarding this character or that character, and they were all answered openly and honestly. One thing that did surprise me was the tone of the complaining about not getting figures in NY as quickly as our West Coast brethren – an observation which showed a complete ignorance about how toys are distributed in the US. Most toys come in at California ports, and over the course of a few weeks, dependent almost entirely upon the distribution system of any given retailer, they make their way around, leaving Mattel with little say on what is sent where and in what quantity. To complain to Mattel is a fruitless activity, unless you’re asking them to just make more toys – and even still, the retailers need to order them. For a few minutes, it was like sitting in a whiny message board, and it was uncomfortable.

The second panel I sat in on was a discussion with Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, who wasn’t given anything but a chair and a table. No moderator, no preface – just a guy open questions and answers. Despite the lack of preparedness on the part of NYCC, Mignola sailed through the questions in good time and gave great, casual answers regarding his many projects, inspirations and aspirations. He wanted to break into comics, he started inking things (poorly, by his own admission), and eventually decided that drawing monsters fighting was his true calling – and he never looked back. It really didn’t get more complex than that, and it didn’t need to be. Oh, and using lots of dark shadows on things meant that the comic’s colorist couldn’t screw it up too badly.

I arrived at the Hellboy II cast panel an hour early. As it turned out, the Lucasfilm panel was running 30 minutes late, so the insanely huge crowd of a line waiting outside of the IGN Theater didn’t even really know what they were waiting for, and no one seemed to be able to tell them. This was exacerbated by the fact that the only crowd control was volunteer teenagers in yellow shirts, none of whom could give an answer consistent with the guy standing next to them. I waited on the line for about 45 minutes before I was told that it wasn’t for Hellboy after all (even though it was scheduled to start), and that I wasn’t allowed to wait on ANY lines until 2 PM. Despite this, Hellboy fans started their own impromptu line off to the side, while we all joked and debated as to whether our line was an official line or if we’d again be dispersed by the angry grey-haired guy. I was chatted up by an anime geek while I mostly shrugged and indicated that I had no idea what he was talking about, but wrote down a few ’suggested watching’ titles anyhow. We eventually wound our way in, sat through a few scenes of the upcoming action movie ‘Wanted’ and enjoyed a short talk with the Russian director – who seemed totally bewildered at the crowd.

The Hellboy panel, presented immediately afterwards, included director Guillermo DelToro, Ron Perlman, Doug Jones, Selma Blair and Mike Mignola, along with newcomer Luke Goss. After an extended trailer, the lights returned and the stage was filled with creatures from HBII, delighting and shocking the whole audience. After this, the audience lined up to ask questions – most of them directed at DelToro. In fact, I don’t recall Selma Blair or Luke Goss (who actually appears in both Hellboy and Wanted) saying a word during their entire stay on stage – with DelToro vibrantly and amicably (and crassly) responding to every inquiry. He expounded on his feelings as an independent director versus being a director working for a major company – and while the big bucks reside in major motion pictures, he likened it to trying to draw a picture while a dozen hands are holding your pencil. He gave out his personal e-mail address in a search for artists and interns, which I quickly wrote down and began to do sketches for. I’m far more enamored with creators than with celebrity, but it would have been nice to get a few more words out of the actors regarding how they felt about the filming process. Perhaps the most interesting revelation was that the voice of new movie creature Johann was to be provided by Seth MacFarlane – creator and talented voice actor from Family Guy.

The Hellboy monsters were going to stick around for photographs, and a limited edition poster was to be given out, but I bolted out of the theater to make it to the Venture Bros. panel on time. I was very surprised to encounter another ridiculously long line that wrapped around the small events hall. Everyone expressed doubts about the size of the line being able to actually make it inside, but after a quick room change and a couple of crowbars to squeeze everyone in (along with irate people from another mysterious line that also ostensibly led inside yelling at organizers), we managed to get a seat in the back of the room, right next to a curly-headed guy who was making every every to not fall asleep on my shoulder. And failing.

The Venture panel consisted of a few scenes from the upcoming Season Three, followed by a conversation with Doc Hammer, James Urbaniak, Michael Sinterniklaas and Jackson Publick. While it mostly consisted of in-talking and a debate about whether one would rather lose a toe or a finger (given the choice), I found the behind-the-scenes personalities very interesting. A couple dressed as The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend asked Doc Hammer to perform their marriage ceremony, and the panel launched into a hilarious and philosophical discussion about the souls of clones. Everyone associated with the show was really amicable, and even gave out prizes for excellent questions or costumes – though the prizes only consisted of really bad DVDs.

The effect of most of the panels was to come away inspired to create things, which is the most that I can ask from anything. There was still one day left, and I was going to round it out with a bit of everything.