The Mantis-Eye Experiment

... to preorder! According to this Venture Bros. 2012 Pre-Order Page on Entertainment Earth the figures are now in the hands of, you, the fans. Here's the skinny:

Your pre-order for these characters has never been more important! We need to hit a certain number of pre-orders before we can throw the switch for these figures to start production, and that's where you come in! Just pre-order the figures from this list or ask your favorite comic and toy shops to order the figures for their store. Your credit card will not be charged until the figures arrive in 2012-- provided we meet the order goal-- and then you'll be able to have been a part of Venture Industries history!

These figures sport 10 points of articulation and unlike our retro action figures, are 100% original and new sculpts. The factories require a large commitment, and that's why we wanted to let you know that your pre-orders are so important to making this line a reality.

These figures will not be produced unless pre-orders meet our targets. If you want Brock Samson, Phantom Limb, or even Hank and Dean, show your support with a pre-order. No character is "safe," the shape of the line is entirely within your hands!

All orders must be placed by October 31, 2011. At this time we'll tally our orders and we will make an announcement on how the line will proceed by November 30, 2011.

Right now the little graphic on the page shows only a sad 3% of the required preorders have been attained, so if you want to see these figures and want to help out you should pre-order them like crazy. Individual figures are $9.99 each and a set of five figures is $49.99. You can make a difference! Thanks to Seth Longmire for sending along this news.

Update (8:30pm): Changed the link on Entertainment Earth to a better, linkable one that they posted on their Twitter.

If the first set just wasn't enough the generous DalekEmpress sent along even more cosplay photos from Dragon*Con 2011! This set includes some favorites such as Scaramantula and Evil Dr. Venture. Check it out!

For those attending New York Comic-Con (October 13 - 16), Adult Swim just sent out its full dockett of panels and other events for NYCC. Here's the Venture Bros. panel info:

ADULT SWIM: The Venture Bros
4:15 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Location: IGN Theater
Talent: Jackson Publick (co-creator) and Doc Hammer (co-creator)

The Venture Bros show creators Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer, perennial Comic-Con favorites, will discuss their original series and answer questions that have been submitted by fans on AdultSwimPresents.com/NYCC. Launched on Adult Swim in August 2004, The Venture Bros. is an inspired spoof of 1960s action cartoon shows such as “Johnny Quest.” The animated series follows the bizarre misadventures of the Venture family, which includes world-renowned Dr. Venture, his dimwitted sons Hank and Dean as well as Brock Samson, their bodyguard assigned by the government to keep an eye on the family who is then promptly forgotten by the Feds.

However if that's not enough you can also catch Jackson and Doc at 1pm for a signing in room 1E07. More info to come later!

Posted yesterday, on Mr. Publick's birthday, is a podcast on Geek Night Out wherein Paul Gannon chats with Jackson about pretty much everything:

As a result, you can hear Jackson talk about Star Wars, his personal influences, hidden music tracks, Pulp, getting backstage at concerts, being lost in London, where he keeps his collectable figurines, what to expect at Comic Con (too late), the mythology of The Venture Brothers, toys, musicals and a whole host of other little titbits!

Clocking in at just over 40 minutes it's a pretty beefy interview with lots of great info (both Venture Bros. and non), so you should certainly check it out.

For those of you interested in the 3 3/4" Venture Bros. action figures that were revealed back during San Diego Comic-Con you may remember that BifBangPow!'s distribution partner Entertainment Earth put them up in convenient but expensive packages of five figures for $49.99. Well now, if you only wanted a couple figures there are pre-orders of some of them individually for a mere $9.99:

• Brock Samson (Black Shirt)
• Dr. Mrs. The Monarch
• Dr. Venture (Red Speed Suit)
• Dean Venture
• Hank Venture
• The Monarch

And remember, these are not entirely set in stone yet, so get to pre-ordering if you ever want to see them!

Thanks to roving reporters attending Dragon*Con, in spite of me not going to the show you still get some high-quality Venture Bros.-centric coverage.

Dragon*Con 2011 Coverage: A Dr. Who And A Doc[tor] Hammer
Katie Delz of the Hench 4 Life Podcast has a nice write up of the many Venture-related events at the convention including the various panels involving Doc Hammer.

Dragon*Con 2011 Cosplay Photos
And if you're craving more DalekEmpress graciously offered up some of her photos the Venture Bros. cosplayers at the convention. There are some awesome (and obscure) costumes in there, so check it out.

Many, many thanks to both Katie and Vanessa for being Mantis-Eye reporters for the convention and for being the first major contributors to the site (outside of capsule notes) since its inception seven years ago. Thanks guys!

For even more Venture Bros.-related Dragon*Con panel news videos you should check out the following from impromptu panel "Quiet Time With Doc Hammer" put together by Venture Bros. Blog. The panel is distinctly less Venture Bros. centric than the Venture Bros. panel, but there's a good amount of facts about Doc Hammer from the man himself.

Thanks to Marc Ilagan for organizing the panel and Adam 'Kuiosikle' Albert for recording the whole danged thing.

The awesome kittininja has posted videos from a ridiculously front and center position of this year's Dragon*Con Venture Bros. panel starring Doc Hammer and James Urbaniak. The first part is embedded right here:

And here are part two, part three and part four and the final part (or click through for embedded versions). That should cover you for a while! Enjoy!

Also if you happen to be Jackson Publick you may want to check about 22 seconds into part three.

This is somewhat off-topic, but news will probably be slow for a while and it's the first bit of Jonny Quest news probably in a while. Here's a recreation of the Jonny Quest opening titles done entirely with stop-motion (and some post-production compositing when needed). It's quite impressive and be sure to check out the behind the scenes info for a more in-depth look at all the work that went into making this.

Thanks to JP for sending this my way!

As promised, Adult Swim's web store has a physical copy of the "Jacket" EP that you can pre-order for a mere $5. It includes all five tracks from the downloadable version and each CD will be hand-numbered. Quantities will be limited so get while the gettin's good! These will ship on September 6th. On top of that a Shallow Gravy tshirt has also been offered up. It features a picture of the band featured in the album art. Also promises to be the "raddest shirt featuring H.E.L.P.eR." ever sold. The shirt can be yours for only $18.