Excited murmurs carried on the air in the Grand West (Hilton) on Sun at 11:30AM as every seat was filled for the “Venture Bros. Panel.” Moderated by Ken Plume with speakers including Mark Gagliardi, Doc Hammer, and Hal Lublin, the panel delivered on the comedic chaos that the cartoon embodied.
For the first time in nine years, Doc Hammer returned to Dragon Con and the crew proceeded to take questions from fans for the full duration of the panel. As a member of the audience in his last panel, “Let’s All Smoking!” nine years ago, I jumped right on the opportunity to cover this panel.
Doc Hammer talked about speeding up an episode rather than cutting a joke from one of the twenty-four minute long episodes, and the teary-eyed call from his sound guy five hours later.
When asked about his appearance as the “Hand puppet” in 2019, he spoke on his two-year recovery from T4-7 spinal compression after joking about masturbatory self-injury.
The next questioner asked Doc Hammer about incorporating gothic elements into Venture Bros., to which he responded: “You don’t choose to be goth… goth is in your blood. I put it in my show because it’s all I know.” Laughter rang out across the hall as he admitted to shaving in a widow’s peak in his earlier years.
Doc Hammer discussed the premise for Sergeant Hatred, whose idea came about when he saw a man with a flat-top cut in a Starbucks watching soft-core porn and saying, “Oh yeah, look at those fillies.”
The topic of how Doc met Jackson Publick, the other major contributor to Venture Bros. arose, and Doc Hammer spoke about meeting him at a party. He said they immediately clicked and it changed the course of his life. Now, twenty years later, he is still his number one friend and relationship of his life. They will never stop writing together and to this day still write together.
To me, the spotlight of the hour was mentioning a show pitched to Adult Swim on the Triad, which was met with mixed reviews. While it wasn’t greenlit, knowing the team is still working towards creating the next great project is very exciting.
From conversations about a hatred for ASMR keyboard clicking to the illegitimacy of “AI-Artists,” Doc Hammer delivered laughs on nearly every topic he discussed, the same as he did nine years ago. His panels are always a great time, and this reporter hopes he makes it back next year.
