The biggest direct influence on my career is Ben Edlund, who gave me my first real professional break and, through his friendship and example, turned me into a writer and a more critical thinker in general.
Christopher McCulloch
Shirt Club isn't just a series of shirts that say 'I Love The Monarch' on them.
I don't watch a lot of TV. I just don't have a whole lot of time, and my life is so disorganized, I don't have any kind of consistent schedule. Usually, I pop in a DVD or flip around when I get home at 4 in the morning and try to fall asleep.
I try to make a really good spy movie, so the animation has to be good. 'Bot Seeks Bot' was one of my lighter and more playful ones, so it can survive not being visually told as well. I did have some issues with the quality of the inking on some of the animation, but a lot of that will only ever bother me.
Shore Leave is the one who evolved the most - because he started as a one-off joke because we were gagging on how the G.I. Joe vocationally specific-themed characters reminded us of the Village People. We made a sassy Village People kind of guy, and then we brought him back.
'The Green Lantern' seems a little calculated to me. It's like, 'We've got to get on this gay bandwagon and make this character gay.' Like anything else, there's earnest expressions in the culture and then there's kind of bandwagoning.
I accidentally saw David Byrne's last two songs in Prospect Park at a free concert because I came out of a movie late, and he was still playing.
My generation has a hard time being genuine and enthusiastic. There's a lot of irony in our culture.
Before I went off to Rutgers, I worked in a comic book shop in my hometown. At night, I would work on some comic stories, and after a while, I developed an idea for a weird little superhero spoof comic called 'Cement Shooz.'
Fundamentalists are crazy. They're the real world equivalent to the evil geniuses of our spy fiction and our superhero comics. They want to mold the world into a specific shape that they really believe in, and if you don't believe in that, if you can't relate to that, it just seems crazy.
I don't think a lot of people are able to relate to genuine patriotism, a genuinely good feeling about our country and its meaning to the rest of the world.
The thing that always struck me about 'Jonny Quest' is: What kind of parent brings his kid to the Amazon so that yetis can throw boulders at him?
The basic idea of 'The Venture Brothers' was taking the world of 'Jonny Quest' and jumping back into 30 years later, seeing how someone who grew up like Jonny - with that kind of space race enthusiasm and disregard for other cultures - would turn out. Dr. Venture is a boy genius who didn't grow up to be what he should have been.
Around 2000, I was working on cartoons like 'PB&J Otter' and 'Doug.'
I hate hearing me talk when I'm not in character, and I can barely deal with hearing me as a character.
I would have really loved to have gone on a hiatus to write for Daredevil.
Cristin Milioti! Who you might know from 'How I Met Your Mother' or 'The Wolf of Wall Street.' A pure delight.
The Monarch is the Big Bad to this one family of former adventurers, but we've always known there is a bureaucracy of villains that is a workman-like aspect to them.
Guys like the Monarch are not unique, and there are guys like him all over the world torturing dumb scientists.
There's a million jokes about what's going on with Batman and Robin. It's a classic thing to call out the homoerotic nature of the men's adventure show.
I dressed as the Riddler once, when I was little too heavy to do. I would wear tights. My brother was in a hair metal band, and he had Riddler tights made. My brother's a geek, but he was in a heavy metal band, so I'm a chubby fifteen-year-old, and I borrow his Riddler tights and wear them to school with the package. That wasn't a good idea.
I don't think I would want to do an animated movie because I've already made so many hours of animation that what's the point? I'd want something new and weird to challenge me in a different way.
I think the feeling was that 'Venture Brothers' really has something to sell in terms of a feature. 'Aqua Teen' is an element minute cartoon, and its very subversive and non sequitur and weird. We were writing the one show where we were constantly like, 'God, I wish we had another hour to tell this story.' It seemed like a natural fit.
Because I grew up on 'Star Wars', that was the best example of creating a full and rich world to me as a writer. When I was watching those movies as a kid, I wanted to know more about every damn character in that universe. There was always a hint that there was a story there that you just weren't getting to see.
When you see 'Star Wars', and you see Greedo hustle up to Solo, you know they have a history; you understand that there's a dude named Jabba the Hutt who's after him, and Greedo is going to try to shoot him and get the money. You get what's going on there.
I think it's more fun to grow to love characters who are flawed than it is to present perfect characters. Perfect characters aren't very funny. Certainly my friends are a strange, intense bunch of people, and people's families drive them crazy, but challenging relationships are always more rewarding.
I've been working pretty much 12-16 hours a day, six or seven days a week since May of 2003, and every time I see a photo of myself, I realize that there is never a time when I don't look exhausted.
Maybe they're not 'books,' but 'Acme Novelty Library' and 'Eightball' are two comics I can't get enough of.
The first I bought were records. I don't know which was first, but I feel like it was the same day. It was 'The Muppet Show' soundtrack and Queen's first album, because it was the only one my brother didn't have.
I used to throw on soundtracks, and orchestral stuff would be the only thing I could write to, maybe 'Dead Can Dance' or 'Cocteau Twins' or something. Mostly, it was movies scores that would kind of inspire me.
My first cassette was 'Synchronicity,' and my first CD was U2 'War' and King Crimson 'Discipline.'
The tragic thing about the Internet is that you can find out way too much, way too quickly.
I really love advertising art of the '50s and the way mid-century design was often represented in jazzy, fast art.
In the production, it's my job to find every flaw and the ones that can't be fixed, and that's why my job kind of sucks. My first reaction to everything is: here's the 20 things that are wrong with it. Unfortunately, that's how I have to live.
The thing I loved about the cartoons I grew up with is, to this day, I'm still just starting to get certain references from Bugs Bunny cartoons. I'll see some film noir movie and go, 'Wait, that's what Bugs Bunny was quoting!' I like the idea we made the unfolding fortune cookie for ten years from now.
I will say, there's not an episode in existence where whatever didn't come out the way I wanted it to or is an actual mistake that won't nag at me until the end of the time.
I must admit I don't watch a lot of Adult Swim or Cartoon Network.
I like expensive-looking, nuanced, hour-long dramas that don't smell like regular TV. That and cheap, funny shows that feel like one guy made them by himself. So ... artisanal television?
Mommy and Daddy both had jobs when I was a kid, so, like a lot of people my age, TV became Mommy and books became Daddy.
