Special thanks to Justin Cavender, Brian Chen, Bandai-Namco, Shannon Meehan, Skybound, Robert Kirkman, Paul Nomad, and New York Comic-Con.

Cosplayers

Booths & Displays

Panels

Interviews with:

• Dave Willis (ATHF Co-Creator, voice of Carl, Meatwad, and Ignignokt)
• Matt Maiellaro (ATHF Co-creator, voice of Err)
• Carey Means (Voice of Frylock)
• Dana Snyder (Voice of Master Shake)

ATHF Forever Plantasm on 4K Blu-Ray, DVD, and Digital on November 8th. PRE ORDER TODAY!!!!

Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell

Venture Bros.

Dream Corp LLC

For more Adult Swim news, info, & more… keep it here (occasionally) and over at the Swimcast (more than occasionally).

But that shouldn’t imply the fun is over! In addition to Adult Swim programming, I had the chance to speak with pretty much the ENTIRE cast (including the one and only, Christian Slater) of FX’s hit animated show, Archer. 

If you have 20 minutes of your time to spend watching me chat with the cast, it starts off slow and awkward (as per my usual), but gets better as time progresses. I should also caution, there’s an f-bomb or two.

I had a blast at NYCC as always, but the highlight of my weekend had to be after this interview, when Jessica Walter (voice of Malory Archer, also Lucile Bluth from Arrested Development) made a comment about my being the only person there to wear a tie and look sharp. I was sincerely humbled.

At any rate, I hope you all enjoied the NYCC coverage. If you haven’t seen the rest, I highly recommend checking out all of the videos on our YouTube channel.

It’s my hometown convention, and it’s getting bigger and bigger and outgrowing its home more and more each year, and ReedPOP experiments with new ideas (the Queue Hall is making its debut this year, with the entire idea that it’ll be easier for people to get into panels on the Jacob Javits Center’s Main Stage, a pretty huge room. I attended one panel so far this year, and it was there, and I got in, so, I have no real idea if the new concept is working) and does a hell of a job putting on a great show. I will always love this con.

It’s an odd thing, going to a con in the city in which I live, because friends go– but there’s a definite chance I’ll never see them. There are times we’re definitely in the same room, whether it be a Main Stage panel or the show floor, but we’d never know unless we intentionally find one another.

It probably happened today, during the only panel I really got to attend on day one of four, the Bob’s Burgers panel. The fantastic kick-off to the weekend had series creator Loren Bouchard moderating and participating on the panel itself, with cast members H. Jon Benjamin, Kristen Schaal, Eugene Mirman,  John Roberts, Larry Murphy, and Bobby Tisdale. No Dan Mintz this year, but we did get a seven or eight foot tall Tina sitting on stage throughout the panel. It was the same as the one in these photos from the show’s premiere party via the official Tumblr.

We were treated to three clips from upcoming episodes, in varying stages of finished. One starred Bob and a blonde-haired Linda, who, as described by Loren Bouchard, accidentally made herself that way when attempting to get rid of gray hairs. Linda decides to embrace her new hairstyle, trying to seduce Bob while he’s working. The next, which was just storyboards and voice acting, included Bob going to a life drawing class where he’s seated in front of an easel and a nude Gretchen (the old woman who runs the art store in the neighborhood– you may remember her from the episode where Gayle has her paintings of animals’ butts up all over the restaurant, and the episode wherein Bob is mixed up in a hostage situation, saying the fish Tina drew on the burger delivery to the bank wasn’t a fish or a rocket, but a penis). The third stars the kids, who are tasked with buying Bob some black garlic while he’s in the middle of a cooking competition from a local organic food market named FigJam’s, a place the three were banned from after trying to buy a dark chocolate bar with chili and bacon flakes that wound up being $13.

The Q&A session had some highlights and some good news for those who love the original music the show has all the time (and who doesn’t, really?). Loren explained that the soundtrack people have been asking for is basically finished, they’re just hunting for a means of distribution. So, hopefully, we get to hear it soon.

For those interested in the improvisational parts of the show, the cast says that when it comes to that, it’s pretty much 95% script, and about 5% ad-lib. Loren doesn’t want to go in and expect the cast to just improvise everything, because it’s a difficult craft and he’d feel bad. He also says, for those trying to write their own animated show: cast first, write second. Once you have your voices down, at least in your head, the material comes easier. Also, he remarked that the first pitch of the show was “a family who runs a restaurant, and who are cannibals.” This came from a question about whether or not he ever felt pressure to be “relevant” or topical, or anything like Family Guy.

A couple of big highlights from the fans during the panel: there were two guys cosplaying Jimmy Pesto Jr. who were at the Q&A mic. One was asked to dance, so he did his best version of Jimmy’s weird dance where he essentially just rubs his arms and shoulders and sways around. The other came up with a friend dressed as Tina, and stayed behind her the entire time she asked her question, doing the same dance. It was pretty dang funny.

One moment I really liked was late in the Q&A session, a very young kid named Judah came to the mic to ask a question and when he said his name, Jon Benjamin asked him what his last name was. This ended up being a bit– Judah is Jon’s son, Jon remarking “I have a son named Judah! He looks a lot like you.”

The show will cover the usual bases this season in terms of holidays: their next new episode will be their Halloween special, and there will, of course, like always, be a Thanksgiving episode and Christmas episode as well. The Thanksgiving ones are always season highlights, so look forward to that. The Christmas one will star Bill Hader as Bob’s estranged father when Linda tries to get them together for the holidays. Jordan Peele and Keegan Michael Key of Comedy Central’s Key and Peele will guest this season as well. [Source: New York Daily News]

The first day of the con was a strong one, and I definitely spent too much of my money already, but that’s alright. What’s the convention for if not buying stuff you don’t need and attending fun panels?

Friday, the convention kicks into gear with the first of two Adult Swim panel blocks, including the Jack McBrayer/Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, Rick and Morty, and Robot Chicken panels, and the Archer panel, so if you’re there, get to the Queue Hall and get your wristbands early. If you aren’t, [adult swim] Central will be your eyes and ears.

Con-goers, we’ll see you bright and early Friday.

This year was a bit of a mess for us– there were travel screw-ups, schedule conflicts, and other things that prevented us from attending some of the things we wanted to cover for you. But we still got to the majority of the slate, and we got some interviews (which will be coming your way soon!) so it worked out good. We successfully attended:

• The Venture Bros
• Bob’s Burgers
• Eagleheart
• Rick & Morty
• China, IL

Which ain’t half bad. In this article, we’ll have a little recap of each and every one we got to see. Check that out after the cut.

The weekend kicked off as it does, with The Venture Bros on Friday on the con’s Main Stage 1-D. It was one of the no-news years for Doc and Jackson, so there isn’t much to tell besides the fact that you need to keep an eye out for a Venture Bros artbook from Dark Horse sometime soon as well as maybe some new content on your TVs in the next year while the boys set up season 6 (nothing’s even been written yet so there will be a bit of a wait before you get any new seasons or anything).

The panel itself had highlights such as a discussion about underwear types, Doc dancing to some music from Grease with a panel attendee who meant to ask a question but instead got roped into the jig, and a giant, light-up robot set to ask about the show, that Doc wanted oh so bad to knock down. Some photos from the Adult Swim facebook page:

Movin’ on.

One of the biggest highlights of the weekend was the Bob’s Burgers panel on Friday night on the new Empire Stage 1-E. H. Jon Benjamin, Dan Mintz, John Roberts and Larry Murphy were on the panel moderated by creator Loren Bouchard and it was a ton of fun. Loren Bouchard spoke of the kind of crossover he likes– he described them as “soft crossovers” where instead of a character or cast making the jump over, a star from the other show could come in and make an appearance as a similar character. It effectively kills your hopes of another Archer-Bob crossover on the Bob half of the spectrum, though having Archer cameo came up (having him drive by the restaurant, screaming, was what the panel discussed as being the best idea).

We were treated to a very, very unfinished clip from the show’s upcoming Christmas episode as well as a far more finished clip from another upcoming episode. The Christmas episode has the Belchers running from a crazy person in a candy cane truck, trying to get the family for some reason I’m sure we’ll find out in the episode later this year. A big highlight for me was a Tina cosplayer’s “Bob’s Burgers Panel Erotic Friendfiction” that Dan Mintz was glad to read out to the crowd, and the panel was glad to help act out (it described a dreary reality where butt-touching was outlawed at the panel, but the cast saved the day by touching their butts on the panel, inspring Loren Bouchard to do the same in front of everyone, and in the end everything was fine). John Roberts broke out into Linda quite a lot during the panel, and Dan Mintz’s actual voice is Tina’s voice, so that took a bit for the crowd to settle in and get used to. One of the best hours all weekend. Some photos from the Bob facebook:

The show will be pre-empted by baseball for a few weeks on Fox, but it’ll be back after the World Series with new stuff. And, of course, catch it on Adult Swim nowadays as well.

After being unfortunately unable to make either the Archer or The Heart She Holler panels on Saturday, we did eventually get to the Eagleheart one. We got there late– but we did get to enjoy some discussion by the panel and the Q&A. The new season, dubbed Paradise Rising, will premiere November 14th and the panel mentioned that it’ll do more than just bring the laughs and increasingly more absurd deaths this year– it’ll bring feelings. The show will make you feel this year. So get yourself prepared for that. The season will be one big story in 10 episodes, and Chris Elliott said that this season was his favorite episode of the show (explaining he sees it as one big one), so it’s shaping up to rule. Martin Sheen is in it, too. Check out a trailer:

http://video.vulture.com/video/Exclusive-Eagleheart-Preview/player?layout=compact&read_more=1

Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland were basically the whole panel for the upcoming Adult Swim animated series based on a super vulgar short by Roiland from quite a while back that starred a duo of Doc and his grandson Mharti going back in time to stop a tree from existing. In the time between then and now, the show has grown into a half-hour show that’ll be coming to the network this December. It looks great. It looks so great.

The show will start off as a half-hour show, which is an odd change for a Swim show that usually would start as a quarter-hour and possibly move up if they see fit. But, according to Harmon and Roiland, the network wanted it this way– Dan says the network has big plans for the future and they’re hoping they can be one of the big flagships for whatever expansion they have coming in the years to come. All of that is great to hear.

We were treated to 10 minutes (about half) of an episode in which Rick has Morty come with him on a mission where they use new devices that he created to jump into peoples’ dreams. They dive into Morty’s math teacher’s dream so they can coax him into giving Morty an A by hijacking a plane with a makeshift bomb made of sodas. Turns out, the teacher is a very lucid dreamer and he has complete control over the dreams, attacking the duo instead. To escape, they go deeper and deeper into other dreams of other people inside of the teacher’s dreamscape. At the same time, the family dog has a new helmet that makes him smarter than the average dog that Rick threw together, and he’s using it to become ultra powerful and begin putting together a dog militia. It got me excited, and I’m looking forward to the show this winter.

One person in the Q&A coaxed a Lemongrab voice out of Justin Roiland, voice of the Adventure Time villain, shocking and confusing Dan Harmon, who it turns out, has never seen the character. It was brilliant.

Check out the trailer:

Our final panel this weekend was Saturday night’s China, IL panel. The season is ongoing so there wasn’t a ton to discuss, but we got some clips of this past Sunday’s episode and more. Brad Neely, Dan Weidenfeld, Dave Newberg, and Brooke Hogan were on the panel discussing the show and their work on it. Brooke talked about having to record lines from this week’s episode in front of her father– of course, the pro wrestler and Dean of China IL himself, Hulk Hogan– including numerous lines including the word “pussy”. Turns out, the Hulkster found it hilarious.

We also got to see a new video by Brad Neely for the newly-revived Creased Comics in the style of his original cartoons like the old Professor Brothers and Baby Cakes shorts about a dude named Queeblo with a tattoo of the word “FUCK” on his neck getting a Whopper and a forty at 5:45 for $5.45. Check it:

The panel was a lot of fun and closed on a video of penises drawn by Brad and set to music. You can probably envision the whole panel. A photo of the panel staring at you from the Adult Swim facebook:

That’s about it for NYCC 2013 in terms of Adult Swim stuff. We saw plenty of cosplay (lots of Venture including an impeccable Truckules, and a Don Shake from the ATHF live-action episode sat in on Rick & Morty and China), bought plenty of goodies (including Venture toys and art), ate not so much food, paid $5 for a hot dog, and had a hell of a time. We love NYCC. It’s close by, it’s a ton of fun, it’s got a lot to do, and everyone is pretty dang nice. Thanks to Adult Swim for the panels, thanks to the staff of the con, ReedPop, and the convention center for a great weekend. We’ll see y’all October 9th-12th, 2014.

We will have interviews with people the likes of H. Jon Benjamin, some of the Robot Chicken cast, and plenty others soon. Keep an eye out here for those, and on adultswim.com for the panels in full, which they tend to post after each con. There’s also a chance we’ll have more coverage via CrazyMeganeChan, so stay tuned. ALSO, check out Toonami coverage from our buddies over at ToonamiFaithful.com

Love you and miss you already, NYCC. ‘Till next year.