The Mantis-Eye Experiment

If you're a sci-fi fan (and how could you not be?) then you may know of The Sci-Fi Block, an excellent site devoted to all things sci-fi. So when the site's editor in chief and founder, Robert Ring, asked me to come on the Sci-Fi block podcast of course I agreed. Also joining me as a guest was Chandra Free, author of the graphic novel The God Machine (which you should buy immediately) and huge Venture Bros. fan in her own right. We talk about the season four finale, season four in general and a lot more Venture-related stuff. It's a good time, you should check it out at Sci-Fi Block or on iTunes (whenever it shows up there).

We have a few items of note for you today:

Signed Venture Bros. DVD Winners

So for those of you curious, here are the winners. In first place with the highest score (at the time) we have a comic by Brickman. Everyone seemed to like it the most, so he won and picked up a signed Blu-Ray. Coming in second place was a mystery man only known as 'light-wednesday' who made a comic that I and many other people enjoyed because he got the second highest score (and the most votes) and picked the season one DVD. Third place, which was my pick (and let me tell you, that shit was difficult, you guys are some funny fuckers) is a wonderful comic by Cate. She grabbed the season two DVD. I just like the idea of Jackson and Doc running rampant at Legoland. And finally, the man only known as 'Fig' was randomly selected and made a pretty funny comic to boot and was left with only the season three DVD.

Mantis-Eye Mug Winner

Normally I don't divulge who wins the smaller giveaways (unless they reveal it themselves) but I was very pleased when my random winner script actually picked a site regular, Phil, to win this prize. Phil has been regularly visiting this site for a while now, so it's (hopefully) cool that he'd win such a weird prize. Hopefully he enjoys many a hot beverage from it.

"Let's Watch" Interest?

Finally I'm wondering if anyone would be interested in some kind of "Let's Watch" thing. Obviously the new episodes are over for now, but the show is still airing. It would basically be an extension of discussion threads, except for reruns. I can put one up for Sunday's airing of "Victor. Echo. November.". They won't be as busy as any of the new episode discussions, but I'm willing to give it a shot if there's a reasonable amount of interest. I'd probably put it up sometime tomorrow and the idea would be to get people watching the episode and even commenting on it while they watch. Let me know what you think in the comments.

That's all for now!

To round off the year, as promised, Adult Swim will be showing one episode from each season as selected by Jackson Publick, plus the Christmas special on December 12th. "Ghosts of the Sargasso" was supposed to air last night at 10pm but Adult Swim played "Dia de los Dangerous!" instead. Oops. But according to the AS schedule the favorites will air as follows:

• "Victor. Echo. November." (12/5 at 10pm)
• "The Doctor Is Sin" (12/19 at 10pm)
• "Self-Medication" (12/26 at 10pm)

As always you can always consult the Mantis-Eye schedule for this kind of stuff. Then, starting in 2011, Adult Swim will expand to start airing at 9pm (an hour earlier than now) and Venture Bros. season one will air for an hour each night at that time starting with "Dia de los Dangerous!" (again) and "Careers In Science" on January 2nd. So ring in the new year with some super science!

And now we have the final 'Weekly Videosodes' update for a while. Sadly. If you missed last week's update with iTunes/Zune versions of "Operation P.R.O.M." you can check it out here. If you prefer your video to be more on the free side then keep reading.

• "Operation P.R.O.M." (aired 11/21)
  • Watch free at AdultSwim.com (US viewers)
  • Coming Soon: Watch free at AdultSwim.co.uk (UK viewers)

For the foreseeable future The Venture Bros. is moving to 10pm! We start things off with a weekly helping of Jackson's favorite episodes, which includes season one's now classic "Ghosts of the Sargasso" (which is on tonight) and season two's exceptional "Victor. Echo. November.". The Christmas special will also be in there somewhere and two more favorites (one for season three and four) and then the show will start from the beginning with season one airing in order starting in January.

The more observant of you may have noticed the little Five Years logo went away. This is because we're finally done with it! There will still be some stuff going on now and again, but with the end of season four comes the end of Five Years.

To keep it brief, I just want to thank you guys for reading and participating, and Jackson, Doc, James Urbaniak, the folks at Adult Swim and everyone else who contributed or helped out in some way.

To keep it not brief, you can read this Five Years postmortem. You don't have to though!

So it's not Black Friday any more (does this day even have a name?) but there's still probably shopping to do, right? Especially if you're like me and sleep through Black Friday. If you know a Venture Bros. fan or two (or someone who hasn't seen it but you think would like it) then I have the perfect thing for you! The Mantis-Eye Holiday Gift Guide! It's chock full of all the best (and sometimes the most obvious) Venture Bros. stuff. Don't say I never did nothin' for yous!

A friendly reminder, still a day and change to try and win those DVDs signed by Jackson & Doc by making a (no doubt) hilarious comic. Also you have a chance even if you're a third party and have to get into this Ross Perot style because two of them are given to people who didn't win! Also don't forget to help out and vote for your favorites (or sabotage your competition). That giveaway ends at midnight pacific (3am eastern) time tomorrow.

Oh and on top of that there's still two days (and change) to win an official Mantis-Eye mug. That contest only requires you enter your name (or reasonable approximation) and email, so it's easy to enter! That giveaway ends at midnight eastern time, which is 9pm pacific on November 27th.

Aside from that have a great Thanksgiving if you are celebrating it, and if not, have an awesome Thursday anyway!

Sometimes history repeats itself.

With the end of season four comes the end (finally!) of Five Years of Mantis-Eye, and with that comes the last season 4.2 weekly giveaway. The prize for this week's episode, and the last giveaway associated with Five Years, is a super amazing Mantis-Eye Experiment mug! It'll keep your hot beverages from burning you when you attempt to drink them, and everyone will know how super cool you are (or they'll wonder what the hell that weird mug is). Head over to the contest page to enter and see a photo. Remember, if you entered any other giveaways you need to re-enter and you have until the 27th.