Image courtesy of Adult Swim

See also:
*Doc Hammer, Jackson Publick and the Cult of 'The Venture Bros.'
*The Venture Bros.: Convention Do's and Don'ts for Fans

At long last, The Venture Bros. are back. This Sunday, season five will make it's much anticipated premiere. More than two years have passed since the rousing conclusion of the show's fourth season on Adult Swim.

Although it didn't take long for word to spread that the popular animated series was picked up for fifth and sixth seasons, it did take a while for new episodes to come to fruition. In the meantime, the team behind the show released a music video and exposé for the Venture compound's house band, Shallow Gravy, and a Halloween special.

Recently, we caught up with Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer, the masterminds of the Venture universe, to talk about the things you might not necessarily know about the show.

More »

Photo by Fredrik Nilsen, Courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery and Fredericks & Freiser

John Wesley's painting Untitled (Woman with Glasses) (2004)

This week, an artist turns two galleries and a storage unit into pseudo-sets for a remake of a Western, and 29 L.A. painters show in a former downtown bank.

5. Finally finished
"Little Ellie, what have I told you about self-expression? ... It goes nowhere," Stalin tells artist Eleanor Antin in Antin's new memoir, Conversations With Stalin. She has routine, imaginary encounters with the dictator throughout this book about growing up in New York, the child of Jewish communists. Antin began giving wry, colorful readings from the book a few years before she finished it. And why not? Refining and rehashing have been part of her art for decades (in the '70s, she aggressively dieted for 36 days to sculpt herself into an ideal figure, and in the '80s she periodically appeared in the guise of struggling African-American ballerina Eleanora Antinova). Now the book is finally done and she will read from it again at LACMA before signing copies. 5905 Wilshire Blvd.; Sun., June 2, 1 p.m.; free. (323) 857-6010, lacma.org.

More »

Kevin Scanlon

Jennifer Lee

One of the fascinating Angelenos featured in L.A. Weekly's People 2013 issue. Check out our entire People 2013 issue here.

In Disney's blockbuster Wreck-It Ralph, Vanellope is a digital princess in a video game who's stripped of her coding and mistreated as a flickering computer "glitch." Vanellope's moxie — plus help from video villain–turned-friend Ralph — saves her.

Of course, that's not how Jennifer Lee rose from the industry mists to co-write the Oscar-nominated Ralph with Phil Johnston (writer of Cedar Rapids), or how she was tapped to be the first female director of a Disney theatrical feature (the upcoming Frozen, co-directed by Chris Buck). But there are intriguing parallels.

Raised in East Providence, R.I., Lee, 41, was a flute-playing band nerd who "became a cheerleader — a nerd cheerleader." She graduated from the University of New Hampshire and went to New York to work as a graphic artist in publishing. But after the shattering death of her true love at age 20, she yearned to tell her own stories. She was shocked to be accepted at Columbia Film School as an older, married grad student. There she met her writing partner, Johnston, also married and nearing 30, on the first day of school.

See also:
*More L.A. Weekly Film Coverage

More »

Teen Titans Go!

See also:
*ThunderCats to Appear at San Diego Comic-Con Before Cartoon Network Premiere

Teen Titans are heading back to Cartoon Network beginning tonight. This time around, though, the young DC superheroes are up for a different kind of adventure. Teen Titans Go! is an animated comedy centered around Beast Boy, Cyborg, Robin, Raven and Starfire. Sure, the episodes will be as action-packed as anything that started out life on comic book pages. The source of those action sequences, though, might be a tad unexpected.

The famed characters first made a splash on Cartoon Network back in the early 2000s with an eponymous cartoon series that lasted for five seasons. That incarnation of Teen Titans was helmed by Glenn Murakami and, while the show had its humorous moments, it was primarily an action series. Years after the show ended, the crime-fighting team popped up in shorts that ran during the network's Saturday morning programming block, DC Nation. The New Teen Titans shorts inevitably lead to the latest Teen Titans vehicle. However, Teen Titans Go! has become its own entity. The voice cast of the core characters remains the same, but the show has new adventures, a new look and even a revamped theme.

We caught up with the creative team behind the new series.

More »

IFC Television

Emmy-winning animator Ryan Quincy has always dreamed of having his own show. During the decade and a half he spent working his way up to animation director for South Park, he spent his hiatuses creating a world entirely his own, inhabited by hairy but harmless creatures just trying to sort out the difficulties of adolescence.

Now, following in the footsteps of primetime animators like Mike Judge and Seth MacFarlane, Quincy is having that dream fulfilled. Out There, which Quincy created, wrote, directed and produced, premiered on IFC last Friday. He spoke to us by phone to explain how a relative unknown lands his own animated TV show and manages to secure voice talent like Megan Mulally, Kate Micucci and Fred Armisen to help make it come to life.

More »

Josiah Golojuh

WIP Featured Artists Meirav Haber, Kevin McTurk, and Sam Koji Hale

A movie must be completed before its screened, right? Not according to Graphation.

Last night, in Downtown Los Angeles' Hive Gallery, the independent film group kickstarted their first installment of Works In Progress by presenting three unfinished films to an audience. The focus of the WIP series is less on product and more on process.

"We want these things to be educational," Andrew McGregor, who comprises half of Graphation, explained during an after show interview. "We've shown finished works in the past, and the questions are always, "How did you come to this conclusion, this destination?" We want to be a resource to the creative community. With the digital revolution, you can make your own movie with an iPhone, but what does that actually mean unless you know how to shoot a film with your iPhone."

McGregor, clad in a cacophony of of patterns and capped by his signature, Jughead-esque felt crown, hosted this evening of movie demystification with his creative partner Josiah Golojuh. This initial WIP showcased a troika of filmmakers specializing in puppet based storytelling. Several dozen attendees crowded into the gallery to watch these artists present hand crafted claymation characters, field questions concerning their creative journeys and screen rough scenes from their infant projects.

More »

Zero Dean

Ethan Nicolle sketches in the background behind his younger brother, Malachai

You know who never gets writer's block? Five-year-olds. Probably the only reason they aren't all prolific novelists is they don't have the patience or know-how to do the typing.

Lucky for 5-year-old Malachai Nicolle, he's got his 29-year-old comic illustrator brother, Ethan, to sketch his imaginings. Malachai is 8 now, but when he was 5, he created Axe Cop, an ax-wielding, dinosaur-killing champion of awesomeness who, thanks to
Ethan's illustrations and guidance, now stars in six comic books and soon will have his own late-night animated TV show on Fox.

In December 2009, L.A.-based Ethan was frustrated with his efforts to break into the comic book industry. He had written and illustrated a critically acclaimed comic, Chumble Spuzz, but still had to work two day jobs to support himself, both of which laid him off right before Christmas. He was looking forward to spending a quiet holiday with his family in Washington, bonding with his brothers and sisters, and starting fresh in the New Year.

More »

Liz Ohanesian

In 2012, Stan Lee got his own comic book convention, Akira creator Katsuhiro Otomo came to town, web sensations like the comic Homestuck and series Dick Figures had wild success on Kickstarter and Lloyd Kaufman put a whole ton of Troma films on YouTube.

Sure, there's plenty more that happened in 2012. This is just the stuff covered in this little ol' weekly column, Cult Stars. Keep reading to find out who made the Top 10 Cult Stars of 2012.

More »

Liz Ohanesian

Jake Kaufman, Cristina Vee and Tommy Pedrini singing the Hey Ice King! theme at The Game Stop in West Hollywood

Wondering about that line in front of The Game Stop in West Hollywood the other night? What's up with all those white hats and blue t-shirts? It's Adventure Time, of course. The popular Cartoon Network series just spawned a new video game.

Hey Ice King! Why'd You Steal Our Garbage?!!, available for Nintendo 3DS and DS, hit stores Tuesday evening. To celebrate, The Game Stop hosted a bash that included a signing with Adventure Time creator Pendleton Ward and game director James Montagna, plus a concert from Jake Kaufman, who composed the music for the game.

There were Finns and Fionas galore inside the Game Stop, plus one pair dressed as Marceline the Vampire Queen and her genderbent counterpart, Marshall Lee. The Flame Princess made an appearance, as did BMO. They had stood in line for at least an hour for a chance to meet Ward, who has become something of a superstar amongst animation fans. He thanked the fans right before the concert and then left quickly, a crowd of fans in the back waving and exclaiming, "Bye, Pen!"

I was unable to find a demo of Hey Ice King! to play, so I can't give you insight into how this latest adventure for Finn and Jake unfolds. It is, as the title implies, a quest to get the garbage that was stolen by the Ice King. Montagna describes it as an "action-adventure with light RPG elements." He also notes that there are new characters in the game, many of whom came from the pen of Ward.

More »

Cartoon Network

Mordecai and Rigby in the Regular Show episode "Exit 9B"

Last summer, J.G. Quintel, creator of Cartoon Network's hit series Regular Show, wanted to record the program's original music onto cassettes and toss those into the crowd at San Diego Comic-Con. "Then kids will have to ask their parents for a cassette player," he explains. "It will be awesome."

He has also asked about releasing the series on Laserdisc. "It would be funny," says Quintel, who has a Laserdisc player, in addition to a combination DVD/VHS machine, in his office.

Outdated technology isn't some sort of gimmick for Quintel -- it's something that's embedded into the Regular Show universe. The central characters, Ribgy (a raccoon) and Mordecai (a blue jay), get obsessed with songs on cassette. They once embarked on a quest for a VHS cassette. In Monday's new episode, "Bald Spot," another character, Starla, is seen talking on a pay phone.

"From the beginning, I really wanted to infuse an '80s vibe," says Quintel of Regular Show, "because I grew up in the '80s and I remember so many things about that era that were cool." He mentions 8-bit video games as an example. "The cover of the box looked so amazing and, then, when you actually played the game, it looked nothing like the cover."

More »