More animated adult series based on comics/more action adult animated series

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Y'know, personally I think that The Venture Brothers is one of the best adult animated action-oriented series. It deals with a lot of interesting issues, even though its under the veil of hilarity and downright kookiness. Satirizing the Johnny Quest genre, even allowing for JQ and crew to be part of the series tangentially, connects a part of a lot of adult's childhood.

It also is a very powerful insight into the idea of failure, and character arcs that deal with deep emotions and overcoming tragedies. The series, through the veil of comedy, really delves into tragedy, loss, failure and dumb luck success.

Dr. Thaddeus "Rusty" Venture is a man who failed to finish his school, is not an actual Doctor in the academic sense. He lost his father at a young age, a father who placed him in dangerous situations, life threatening and frightening experiences for a child. Surrounded by costumed nutcases, so-called "arch-villains" of the Guild of Calamitous Intent, "Rusty" has seen so much death during his childhood its no wonder he's a bit messed up in the head.

And like most abused children who grow up, he has perhaps unconsciously placed his own children in the same mortal danger time and time again.

Spoiler: If you haven't watched the series I suggest you do before continuing.

Dean and Hank have died multiple times and the current "Dean" and "Hank" are clones with implanted memories of the original and copied clones who died in horrible ways. In a sense they were nearly immortal but the clone vats were emptied in a horrible display of callousness by "Rusty" and Brock. To watch yourself die over and over to a "misunderstanding" of the OSI and an ill-timed arching by the Monarch ("Rusty's" arch-nemesis)... It has to be mentally disturbing. Those poor kids are now left to live a life in a highly dangerous world, one they've technically died many times in.

So much pathos is exuded by Jackson Publick and "Doc" Hammer in this almost lighthearted and childish series that is also so deep and though provoking. I absolutely adore the fuck out of Venture Bros.

I just wish it wasn't so damn long between seasons. Holy shit I feel like I'm gonna be 60 before they finish it.

 

[briankoontz]

Be patient. The future is all about animation, since it's technology and is improving, while the "technology" of improvements in live-action acting, directing, and cinematography advances at a slower pace. Animation also has the advantage of novelty - we don't know what it's capable of so it has more "potential" than live action.

The value of technology in a dying world is that it could be miraculous, the magical solution to all our problems, the Holy Grail. Commenters on the 20th century often marveled at the technological advances, without noting that the basic reason for that was that technology was the dominant religion for the wealthy in an apocalyptic world, and has only become more so in the 21st century as the dying world has become less avoidable.

The more desperate we become, the more we turn to very risky, dangerous, and ridiculous technology, in the same way that a man desperate to get out of debt doubles-down at the betting table, going "all-in" as it were. We're hardly even worried about the Singularity, because we note that whatever the risks involved the future is so bleak that getting annihilated by machines wouldn't be much worse, and the upside could be humanity's salvation.

So humans colonizing mars - sure, why not? The Singularity, sex robots, cloning, holograms - bring it all on. We have nothing left to lose. We have no future.

The problem with animation in the United States in particular is that it doesn't feed celebrity culture in the same way as live action does - celebrity media wants pictures of Scarlett Johansson, not audio files. So animation in Japan is more much expansive while in the US it's dominated by Disney.