The Venture Brothers Strike First
by Darius Washington

Friday in the International Ballroom, this reporter attended a Q&A panel with the production team of The Venture Brothers, including co-creators Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer, as well as producer Ken Palme.

First, the team announced that there will be a new episode premiered at their film festival Saturday at 10PM. Although they’ve done this festival for three years, this one will be special.  They hinted that clues to the identity of the mother of characters Hank and Dean Venture will most likely be given.

Publick and Hammer fielded questions about the DVD for the second season, which they plan to discuss next week with their production company. Concerns were voiced about the censoring on the previous DVD set, which included bleeps over curse words, despite the set being advertised as uncensored. The duo indicated that the audio track already contained the bleeps, and that it would be too expensive to go back and create an uncensored audio track. They also felt that many of the jokes were more humorous with the bleeps intact.

To create adventures for The Venture Brothers, Publick and Hammer said they get ideas from general life experiences to incorporate into “what these people would do if they were alive,” as well as comic books. They stated that they’d had no issues parodying Marvel Comics characters. “They love us. We used Dean and Spidey in one episode. We do clear some stuff with them beforehand, though.” Publick and Hammer indicated that DC comics were more problematic to deal with “Even though we’re owned by the same company.”

Life in The Venture Brothers recording booth is apparently interesting for the cast. “The way we treat our voice actors is embarrassing. We give the [script] reads while impersonating them.” Casting the voices wasn’t an instantaneous process though. When creating the macho-sounding Brock Samson, for example, Publick “drew him up one year before asking Patrick [Warburton] to voice him.”

As for what fans can expect from Publick and Hammer at Dragon*Con and in the future, they don’t mind being approached for autographs. “The fact we’re not on the Walk of Fame means we won’t charge $20.” Other upcoming episodes will show the boys dying again in a flashback, a new Christmas song (“Ken made us do those the first time”), and more references to David Bowie’s music. However, there will be no more appearances by the Johnny Quest characters for the rest of the season. Publick “rejected a story idea regarding them, though it may be used next season.”

The panel ended with Publick letting the crowd know with no bleep button present that Mr. Monarch is [expletive] tired of these [expletive] snakes on a plane.