One thing we here at PiQ always look forward to every summer is what the minds at Pixar will dream up next, and with Issue 4, we celebrate the release of Disney’s WALL•E. Check out our coverage of the crafty little robot’s cinematic adventures and even get a peek at what’s coming from Pixar in the future!

We also follow the continuing convergence of comics and movies with interviews with Hellboy creator Mike Mignola and The Incredible Hulk director Louis Leterrier, take a look at new comic collections The Legion of Superheroes and The K Chronicles. We also talk to Bang Zoom! president Eric P. Sherman, ADR director Kristi Reed and voice actor Steve Blum about their work on Ghost Slayers Ayashi, catch a glimpse of the long-awaited Maria Watches Over Us, take a trip behind the scenes at TimeGate Studios, catch some quick peeks at new games Final Fantasy IV for DS, Death Jr. and Infinite Undiscovery. To top all that, check out our features on Doctor Who including interviews with star Freema Agyeman and executive producer Julie Gardner and Stargate Atlantis where we catch up with everyone’s favorite medical hologram Robert Picardo, and discover With the Light, a unique manga dealing with the challenges of autism.

In List, you’ll find reviews of the ten most notable releases for July, including Persepolis, The Signal, Mad Men, Chocobo’s Dungeon, American Nerd, The Onion Movie and more.

In LINK, look for our story on A/V Geeks founder Skip Elsheimer (aka “the man with 20,000 films”). That’s 20,000 reels of 16mm goodness, including educational films, PSAs, industrial and training films. And here we thought our tastes were eclectic. Also check out our coverage of this year’s New York Comic Con and Japan Film Festival Los Angeles.

Stick around for Monitor’s big exploration of tabletop RPGs entitled This is How We Role, where we hear from three perspectives on the different genres of RPGs, including Dungeons & Dragons and its future, Japanese RPGs like Sword World, and even our own take on the rise of indie RPGs like Primetime Adventures and Wushu. After that, we talk to Rueben Wu from Ladytron about the band’s newest effort Velocifero, learn about the history of Space Ghost: Coast to Coast and more.

Last but not least, if you’re a Hellboy fan (and even if you’re not), be sure to catch the comic excerpts of B.P.R.D.: Killing Ground and Hellboy: Darkness Calls.

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I’m working on a piece about the upcoming DVD release of Spaced for the next issue but I thought I’d go ahead and share an interview I conducted with director Edgar Wright the other day, who is pretty much the nicest guy I’ve ever had the pleasure of talking to. He also let us in on the status of his many upcoming projects

PiQ: It’s highly unusual for a single director to helm every episode of a series. Was Spaced conceived as such or did you just grow attached to it?

Edgar Wright: It was designed that way, it didn’t seem like there was really any other way of doing it. The first series we shot without a pilot, we just went straight ahead and did seven episodes. Also, the way we scheduled it, it was shot kind of like a film. The entire series was jumbled up, which made it quite ambitious in places because there were odd days where you were doing lots of scenes from different episodes. But in both cases the series was shot in one long shoot.

PiQ: Comedy is rarely a genre where directors employ inventive visuals. Why do you think that is, and why does your style stand in stark contrast to that?

EW: It’s just how I want to direct. The first series of Spaced was 1999, so next year will be ten years old on that series and I directed it when I was 24. I think when I was a teenager and I first started thinking about being a director I was very influenced by directors who had an overall style and a vision, particularly in comedy, everybody from the Coen Brothers and Sam Raimi to even people like John Landis and Joe Dante. These were people who were slightly before people like Tarantino and Wes Anderson came along, although I’m a very big fan of their stuff as well, but I definitely liked directors who had a particular style. And I would see something like Raising Arizona, which is a favorite film of mine, and the way it’s directed is especially stylish, and think at the time, “Oh, I wonder why other films aren’t made like this.” And the truth of the matter is because it’s really tough. So the thinking behind it is I wanted to reflect the films that I liked at the time, and be a bit more ambitious. At the time a lot of TV comedy was very flat and certainly there was a conventional wisdom especially, I’d done some things at the BBC before where you were encouraged to keep it simple and keep it about the performers, and there is wisdom to that, there’s a reason for that, but at the same time I wanted to push the envelope.

PiQ: What were some of your interests around the time of Spaced?

EW: I remember finishing the first series of Spaced and I came to Los Angeles on holiday in the summer of 1999 just after wrapping, and around that time I saw a bunch of films that I was hugely impressed by. In the same period I saw Rushmore, Election, Run Lola Run, Being John Malkovich… they all kinda came out around the same time and it was funny that I saw it right after Spaced, and maybe those had a bearing on the second season, but it definitely felt like there were directors out there that I really admired, like the Wes Andersons and Alexander Paynes. But I’d be lying if I said that they had an influence on the first series because I hadn’t seen their stuff at that point.

PiQ: Could you describe how you started working with Simon Pegg, where you met and what your working relationship is like?

EW: I first starting working with Simon before Spaced, I met him through two other comedians, Matt Lucas and David Walliams who did the show Little Britain, they really gave me my first break. I did a film when I was like 20 called A Fistful Of Fingers, which was a really, really low budget film I made with school friends, and then I moved to London and Matt Lucas and David Walliams were two of the first people that I met in comedy, and they did a stand-up show once and Simon was there, and Simon had been at college with David Walliams, who plays Vulva in the first series of Spaced. What’s really strange is that I came from the same part of the country as Simon, we probably lived about 40 miles away from each other, but he grew up in the same area as me, which is where Hot Fuzz is set, in the West Country. So we met at the stand-up show and then I did a series with Matt and Dave, and then I did another series with Simon in it called Asylum, which pre-figured Spaced, and that had Jessica Stevenson in it as well. I’d worked with Jess once before but it was the first time I’d worked with Simon, and I knew very quickly working with Simon that he would be, you know… he really felt like a muse and he and Jessica were brilliant together in the show and it was suggested that they write a sitcom together. Because I’d worked with them on Asylum and got on really well with them they wanted me to direct it, so I was involved from a very early stage. It was great, really. I realized even then how fortunate I was to be doing this particular show and what a gift the material was because they’d written something very ambitious and I felt very confident that I could do it for them. So I was in a very good position for my age, and also, in TV directors don’t always have as much sway as they do with film. But in this instance I was given a lot of license to experiment, which is brilliant.

PiQ: How do you look back on Spaced now? You’ve done so many other things in film, how do you think of it in terms of your body of work?

EW: I’m really, really proud of it. Funny enough, I had an instance where I watched the whole thing in one day because last November they did a special Spaced marathon at the National Film Theater in London, and so we introduced it and did a Q&A, and pretty much ended up watching the whole thing. And it was really intense and overwhelming to watch fourteen episodes in one go; it kinda felt like three years of my life flashing before me! But the thing is, it was really hard to make, the second series was particularly tough for me at least, so I’m really proud of it. And sometimes I look back at it and I’m just amazed with what we managed to do with the budget and the time.

PiQ: Are you impressed with the cult audience its amassed, particularly in America where this is the first time it’s officially being released?

EW: I’m very flattered. It was amazing when we did the Shaun of the Dead press tour in 2004 how many people favored it and how many American fans had the British DVD and would ask us to sign it and ask questions about it, so that was always very interesting to me.

PiQ: I remember one of the blurbs on the packaging was Bill Hader saying, “Spaced is the sole reason I bought an all region DVD player,” and I think a lot of people felt the same way.

EW: I think so, or if not that, I know people who screwed up the region setting on their laptop to watch Spaced. It’s nice to finally have it out and also for it to be the original version with no changes made to it. And also we have all this new content on the DVD, which is really fun.

PiQ: You’ve got so many upcoming projects you’re involved with, I kinda wanted to do a rundown and see where those are. How about Scott Pilgrim vs. The World?

EW: Yeah, that’s something I’ve been writing. I’ve been involved with that since just before I started filming Hot Fuzz, actually. It’s a very funny series of graphic novels and I’ve written a script with another guy, Michael Bacall, and that’s looking to start filming probably the end of this year or maybe early next year.

PiQ: The World’s End?

EW: Well, that’s something that’s kind of like a working title. Me and Simon are gonna write a third film basically. And it’s gonna be sort of the conclusion to this trilogy of tone with Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.

PiQ: What about Them?

EW: That’s something I’ve been working on with Mike White, which he wrote, I was working with him on the story of that. It’s an adaptation of a Jon Ronson non-fiction book, which is really funny, and it’s something that’s still in the works.

PiQ: And finally, Ant-Man.

EW: I wrote that for Marvel and I’m in the process of doing a second draft. I had a lot of fun writing that script, I wrote it with this guy Joe Cornish, who is a really funny UK writer. It’s not really an out-and-out comedy. I think some people assume that it must be a spoof, but it’s not really. I guess it’s as funny as something like Iron Man is, it’s on that level of entertainment, really. It’s a big, high concept, special effects comic book adaptation, and very character-led and we found a way of… I guess in a similar way to Iron Man, the thing that worked with that and hopefully will with this is that it’s a different way of seeing a superhero origin, because you’ve seen so many of them and we really tried to figure out a fresh take on that story. So it’s definitely a Marvel film but it’s got a little twist on it in terms of the way that it plays out.

PiQ: So your immediate next project is Scott Pilgrim?

EW: Yeah, it would seem that way. I’m pretty much writing on all those other ones, and I have one other project as well that I’m doing with Working Title, so I’m kind of using this period to write all of these things, and so far Scott Pilgrim and Ant-Man are done and The World’s End is being worked on.

While we were certainly pleased to have them in the pages of our magazine, we’ll go one step further and tell you what they’re all about. If you’re already a listener, then props to you for knowing what’s up. If not and you’d like to see what these fine folks are like in their element, we’ve prepared the following handy guide just for you.

Cinebanter

Tassoula Kokkoris and Michael Cummins take on what’s new in theaters with a unique he-said, she-said perspective. They also brave the waters of revealing the last five movies they’ve seen, which while potentially embarrassing, is always interesting. Good times abound.
Visit the site | Listen in iTunes

DVD Weekly Podcast

Don’s the animation enthusiast, Jarrod’s the horror fanatic, both are brothers who love DVDs. The Brothers Schockow keep you up to date on what’s big in DVD releases every week, along with a healthy dose of brotherly ribbing and banter.
Visit the site | Listen in iTunes

Filmspotting

Hosts Adam Kempenaar and Matty Robinson talk about the finer points of cinema, including interviews, film festivals and even marathons of various genres and directors. The discussion is always thought-out (but never too stuffy), and stays light and engaging, especially when Adam and Matty re-enact their favorite scenes in their Massacre Theater segments.
Visit the site | Listen in iTunes

FlickDirect

Join veteran podcaster Nathan Rose and editor Marco Chacon for FlickDirect’s movie podcast, which covers the gamut of popular movies and TV shows, both new and old. Used to be monthly, but now semi-annually, it’s still a good source of discussion on what’s good in theaters and on the tube.
Visit the site | Listen in iTunes

The Kick Ass Movie Podcast

Listen to movie dudes Brian and Zach as they give the lowdown on what’s badass and what’s just plain bad. Not for the faint of heart, but totally awesome for those with a low tolerance for bromantic comedies.
Visit the site | Listen in iTunes

Let’s Watch Movies

Married moviegoers Mike and Jeanne monitor the latest news from the box office and take an in-depth look at one movie every week (whether in theaters or on DVD) and hold contests for listeners.
Visit the site | Listen in iTunes

Worst Movie Ever

Sibling hosts Ivan and Jennie Kander go in front of the camera and discuss the latest releases in theaters, movie news and gossip, come up with Top 5 lists and continue their pursuit for the worst movie ever.
Visit the site | Listen in iTunes | Watch in iTunes

•••

Thanks to all these podcasters for lending their voice to our summer movie feature. We’ll be sure to keep up with their adventures in internet-radio-land, and if you’re looking for a source of what’s good and what’s coming up, be sure to subscribe to these shows.

Crunchyroll to Stream ADV’s Welcome to the NHK

Very interesting news covering the further streamlining of the anime industry. ADV is the latest company to start working with Crunchyroll, although NHK’s being a GONZO-produced show likely has a lot to do with it.

I like Bandai Visual USA’s products a lot. But of course I’d like them — that’s because they were kind enough to send them free of charge for review purposes. If I actually had to pay the prices they wanted for them (something we’ve brought up in reviews like a broken record), I probably wouldn’t be nearly as enthusiastic. Their idea of a ‘premium’ line wasn’t unsound; it just came a few years too late for the anime industry. Premium DVD lines like Criterion exist because there are enough movie buffs who appreciate the extra effort that go behind the releases. In an anime industry primarily driven by downloading, that doesn’t really exist.

Here we are again to discuss what we’ve been up to (despite being such losers). Kevin tells all about his conniving ferret, Scott and I celebrate the epic nature of GTA IV and Paul tells why you should check out The World Ends With You.

We also discuss a fair bit about Issue 3, which you should be able to find at your local newsstands. Find out what we really thought about our cover story, Speed Racer, and what other movies we’re looking forward to from this summer’s crop of big releases. There’s also some talk about roller derby and its appeal, Working Designs and our MONITOR piece on translation “Found in Translation”.

Also, here’s a quick poll to tell us what you thought about Speed Racer:

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

If you have any comments, be sure to send them to feedback@piqmag.com or go to www.piqmag.com/feedback

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For those of you who haven’t seen it, consider yourselves lucky and stay as far away as possible. It’s a terrible, terrible, terrible movie that consists entirely of people being tortured by Italian fascists in the waning days of WWII. Seriously, that’s it. It’s a pretty powerful statement against totalitarianism, but I think it goes without saying these days that Hitler was bad.

We’ve also put together a solid roundup of this summer’s most-anticipated movies, including Indiana Jones, Hellboy II, The Incredible Hulk, The Dark Knight and more. Add to that some excellent summer viewing recommendations from some of the finest movie podcasters around and an overview of the new wave of movie video games and you’ve got yourself a great guide to what’s worth watching (and playing) for the next few months.

Other features include a retrospective on the career of acclaimed director Guillermo Del Toro, new games Ninja Gaiden II, Final Fantasy Tactics A2, Space Invaders Extreme, an interview with Joel Bergen, Jared Hedges, and Alex Muniz (writers of The Shin-chan Show), Emma, a thoroughly enlightening discussion on heroes and other elements of fantasy with author China Miéville, and a introduction to josei manga with contributor Johanna Draper Carlson.

In LIST, look for reviews of the most notable releases for July, including R-Type Command for PSP, the raunchy but heartfelt Asian film Wakeful Nights, the always good for a laugh Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, anime fan-favorite Lucky Star, the contemporary vampire/slacker comic Life Sucks and more.

Leading off this month’s MONITOR section is an examination of the challenges of translating across cultures called “Found in Translation“. We talk to two veterans of the manga industry, Fred Schodt and Jared Cook, about their work with Tezuka Productions and other projects, discuss the ins and outs of video game translation and even look at what happens when translations go bad.

Also in MONITOR, we talk with Isaiah Saxon of Encyclopedia Pictura about their work on Björk’s new video “Wanderlust”, re-visit Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom, meet up with Japanese RPG publisher Working Designs and of course, check in with our regular columnists in Lisa Cooper’s On the BL, Jonathan Clements’ Far West and more

For manga fans, be sure to check out this month’s 16-page excerpt of Toto! The Wonderful Adventure from Del Rey, presented in right-to-left format.

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It looks like the oft-rumored BioShock movie is now for real, as Universal Pictures announced today that they’ll be developing 2K Games’ smash hit into a feature film. Gore Verbinski (The Ring, Pirates of the Caribbean) has been signed to direct and produce with John Logan (Sweeney Todd) currently in talks to do the screenplay. Something tells me that the underwatery, creature-filled goodness that is Rapture should be in some pretty safe hands with Verbinski and Universal at the helm. Little Sisters, Big Daddies, Splicers galore!

On the other hand, since a truly good video game movie has yet to be made (or has it?), I’m sure there are doubts that this will be the one to finally reach mainstream success. At first glance, it would seem that losing the game’s immersive, first-person perspective and interactivity would immediately put a damper on the show, but seeing some of the game’s great moments of suspense and terror play out on a big screen and being able to convey the characters with real actors might make a feature film that much stronger. If you’ve played BioShock, what’s your take?

Wait a minute, what’s that EW cover say? “The First Look at His Controversial MOVIE?” THIS IS A FEATURE LENGTH FILM? Oh myyy (in George Takei voice)…

Read more about the upcoming terribleness here.

Santogold - self-titled: Though Rolling Stone went a little over the top calling her “the future of music”, this thoroughly enjoyable debut by former record label exec Santi White is a great listen for fans of global pop by ladies like M.I.A. and Nelly Furtado. Thoroughly unprententious and a great party album for the early days of the summer. Sample: LES Artistes

The Roots - Rising Down: These Philly legends have turned weirdly goth since moving to Def Jam, but they’ve also eased up on the rigid rules of live instrumentation that, in retrospect, hampered their past material. Rising Down has received pretty much no publicity, but it’s one of the best records of their career. Their early jazzier work was fun but largely unmemorable. This moody, soulful album doesn’t have a weak track in the bunch (especially since they cut the cred-endangering collabo with Fall Out Boy…ugh). Sample: 75 Bars

Robyn - self-titled: You may remember Robyn’s 90’s radio hit “Show Me Love” at your high school prom, but she’s established herself in Europe as one of the most forward-thinking and adventurous pop stars alive. Most of these tracks have been around for a number of years on the intarwebz, but this is their first US release. Fans of Annie or The Knife will absolutely love this. Sample: Who’s That Girl.

Jamie Lidell - Jim: Boy do I loves me some Jamie Lidell. You’ve probably heard A Little Bit More on cell phone commercials, but his records are flat-out brilliant modern day soul with an electronic edge. He takes a more organic approach here, with lots of acoustic instrumentation along the lines of his work with Feist on The Reminder last year. Sample: Another Day

Portishead - Third: Though this is hands-down the most anticipated release of the week (they haven’t released a record in 11 years), I gotta say I’m a tad underwhelmed at this point. Portishead was one of my favorite bands as a teenager, and maybe it’s just because I’m no longer as angsty as I once was, but this one’s not hitting me that hard so far. But the single’s pretty good and I’m sure it will grow on me, prompting me to write a retraction 6 months from now. (Strangely enough, the new Gnarls Barkley record is exactly what I wanted and am not getting from this new Portishead record.) Sample: Machine Gun

I feel like I should know this, but who is the anime lady up top on that page? She looks Rumiko Takahashi-y, yes, but I can’t place her…

Today, the cable network introduced a collection of nearly 1,000 movie trailers on its web site, ranging from ’50s classics like A Streetcar Named Desire to more recent fare like Batman Begins. There are even trailers for classic films and their remakes, so you can have a whole ‘nother level of fun just matching up the trailer from, oh, let’s say 1959’s War of the Worlds against 2005’s War of the Worlds. In that sense, it’s also a great way to see how movie marketing and promotion has evolved (or devolved, depending on your tastes). You’ll probably lose hours of productivity going through them all, so consider yourself warned.

TVLand Movie Database

Now that the first issue of PiQ has come and gone and everybody’s had their chance to chime in, I’d like to talk about one particular criticism that I’ve heard several times. While I anticipated it, I had hoped that the article content itself would deflect such criticism, since I wrote it specifically for the skeptical viewer.

I am referring, of course, to the Avatar: The Last Airbender feature.

Most people who have criticized the piece have done so using much the same logic that has been applied to the rest of our non-anime content—that is to say, “It’s not anime, so I don’t want it.” I find this especially sad because Avatar has so much to offer English-speaking fans of Japanese animation.

A common type of letter that magazines like PiQ and Newtype USA, and websites like Anime News Network receive takes the form of an enthusiastic fan pitching their idea for an anime to us. Occasionally an enterprising column editor will take the trouble to mock the generally awful pitch, or at least tell them that what they’re trying to do isn’t really possible.

But here’s the thing. If you go to school, work hard, refine your ideas and your skills, it is possible to get your show idea made into reality, and Avatar is the proof. Here are a few guys that got into anime, learned what lessons they could from the shows they loved, then put their own together.

As I noted in the Avatar feature, I understand the initial resistance an anime fan might have to a show that seems to be ripping off a genre or medium that they as fans are attached to. I understand that, but with Avatar it simply isn’t the case. The guys that made it are fans, too. They’re the local kids that made good. They are the fans that made their own show. They’re proof that it can be done.

Another reason I find the complaints from anime fandom about Avatar disappointing is that the fandom seems to be missing out on a subtle but important detail: There is nothing between us and the show. It airs in our country, it’s created in our language. Its humor comes from our own sense of comedy, its jokes and puns are meant for us. We don’t need translators, subtitles, and dub tracks to enjoy it. We don’t have to wait, we don’t have to argue about translation minutiae, and the fandom that forms around the show is the core fandom. We don’t have to look wistfully across and ocean for the source, because the source is here.

I understand that the exoticism of anime is one of its draws, for many people. It certainly was for me. But after years of studying the language and culture, years of reading translation notes and explanation and exegesis, enjoying something animated in my own language was a refreshing change. Avatar’s writing is witty, subtle, and emotive, and since it’s in English—with a wonderful voice cast, I might add—it’s easy to understand, and easy to like.

So again, as I did in the feature itself, I urge anime fans to give Avatar a chance. There’s a lot to like, and the fact that the creators were influenced by the very aesthetic that anime fans purport to like should be more reason to enjoy it, not less. That it is seen by some as a ripoff is a cruel irony.

At the end of the day, though, Avatar is wildly successful, having been a consistently highly-rated show in its time slot both within and outside its target demographic. It won the “Best Cartoon” Kid’s Choice Award, unseating Spongebob, the latter show having dominated the award since 2003. It is a huge hit, and deservedly so. A few naysayers aren’t going to have much effect in the face of that kind of popularity. For once, it’s nice to be on the winning side.

To commemorate today’s historic DVD release of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! Season 1, here’s an extended version of our interview from issue 2, currently on every decent newsstand across the fruited plain:

In 2006, Variety called Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim’s crudely animated cult hit Tom Goes To The Mayor “put simply, one of the weirdest series on television.” A year later, the duo launched the anarchic sketch show Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! and caused many a head to explode. Add Tim and Eric Nite Live, the unhinged internet series they host for Super Deluxe, to the pile and you’ve got an entertainment empire like none other. And while their comic sensibilities inspire uncontrollable laughter in some and uncontrollable vomiting in others, few can deny that they are among modern comedy’s most influential and inimitable voices.

PiQ: Where are you guys in terms of work right now?

Tim: We’re getting ready for a tour and in the middle of shooting and editing season 3, plus we’re doing Tim & Eric Nite Live every week, so just too much stuff.

PiQ: How long are you going to do Tim & Eric Nite Live?

Tim: Until they stop giving us money! We’re addicted to it pretty much. We’re doing blocks of 12 episodes at a time.

PiQ: Did being in an incredibly self-serious environment like film school drive you guys to become comedians?

Eric: That was definitely my experience. We both wanted to be mega-serious, Stanley Kubrick art film directors, and once you get into that environment and see all the bad professors who are washed-up directors it makes you laugh at the whole system in general. We made a bunch of short films that were totally anti-film school, and that was kind of a springboard to what we do now. You think you’re so special and then you see these hundreds of other kids doing the same thing as you. It’s really daunting. We came out to L.A. to intern on film shoots and music videos and both came out saying, “Holy s***, this ladder is so long, how do you move up this thing?” We came back to the East Coast a little defeated trying to find another way in.

PiQ: When you were doing the first bunch of videos that turned into Tom Goes To The Mayor, did you have anything planned or did you just want to play around with whatever you could get your hands on?

Eric: With Tom Goes To The Mayor we were fresh from Philadelphia. We had just moved to L.A. and Bob Odenkirk guided us through how to make a TV show and how it works, but in terms of creatively and the editing process that was all us and our head editor Jon Krisel.

PiQ: With Awesome Show you’re able to do a lot more than with TGTTM. When you’re putting together bits is it anything goes with your editors?

Tim: We always try to push them a bit. Whenever we notice that they’re able to do something, we’ll exploit it. Like with Hackey Sack Pros we just jumped around on green screens and left it to Jon to make it work.

PiQ: Both of your shows have a lot of 80’s graphics, like Video Toaster sort of stuff. Do you have an attraction to that era?

Tim: Absolutely, it’s our childhood and it’s sort of engrained in our brain as having some nostalgia to it. It’s also an aesthetic choice, because it looks great in the show, and it looks sort of wrong and sad.

Eric: Somebody asked us what kind of old cameras and gear we use for these lo-fi commercials, and we actually use HD cameras and high-end equipment. Our editors have found ways to use real VCRS to f*** up the image quality and add those tracking problems to make it look dated.

PiQ: Like Steve Brule’s Ultimate Fighting.

Tim: That was a case of our editor Doug Lussenhop literally making a VHS copy and banging on the VCR to create all that noise.

Eric: Watching it clean was funny, but watching it like you found this tape in your house gives it a whole other feel.

PiQ: Adult Swim was the first channel that had 15-minute shows. When Awesome Show ends, do you think you’ll want to try something more long form? I’m thinking about what a Tim and Eric movie would be like.

Tim: So are we! If you figure it out let us know! The 15-minute format has been great for us but sometimes it prevents letting things play out some more. Awesome Show in particular has to move so quickly that you can’t really do drawn-out, uncomfortable weird stuff. Some people would argue that a lot of our stuff is very uncomfortable and very weird but we’d like to do some more long form stuff that doesn’t have to play out so quickly.

PiQ: Is shocking people a part of your format or is it all about the joke and the shock is just a byproduct of that?

Tim: Making people laugh is the first objective, but some things that make us laugh shock other people, so stuff that’s good old-fashioned funny to us may be good old fashioned gross to someone else.

Eric: We love when we get responses of “I can’t even watch this,” like Carol and Mr. Henderson. Some of my friends who are megafans can’t even watch that because it’s so brutal and that’s what we love, that line of “how far will you go?” Some people will cry laughing and others will cringe, but that’s what we like.

PiQ: That was fun, but The Poop Tube was tough to handle.

Eric: Well that was us going to the extreme for the sake of going to the extreme. We knew that would be the grossest scatological joke in history.

Tim: We knew that if we wanted to do a poop joke, we’d have to do the best and most extreme poop joke ever. We can’t just sit in the middle.

PiQ: People have compared Awesome Show favorably or unfavorably to shows like Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Do you think that’s fair?

Tim: Yeah, this show definitely evolves from a long line of other shows like that, but at the same time it’s completely different from those shows. But it’s a rich compliment if anything to be compared to Python.

Eric: We think it’s been a long time coming that there’s a show like this that breaks the format. All the sketch comedy shows that are out, some are great, but they’re very conventional in a way, and the stuff we’re doing hasn’t been around since Python or Andy Kaufman.

PiQ: Dr. Steve Brule is probably the breakout star of Awesome Show. What’s your relationship with John C. Reilly and why do you keep coming back to each other?

Tim: John did a voice on TGTTM, and he’s a friend of comedy and a really super nice guy. But he loved the script and was like “Who wrote it?” and we were like “Well, we wrote it, we write all this stuff.” It was at the end of TGTTM and the beginning of Awesome Show and we had this huge board of all the stuff we were thinking of for it. He came in our office and saw the board and was like “maybe I can do a character on your show.” And we were secretly screaming inside, but we kept it really casual. The first season of Brule was all shot in one day, we had five ideas for him and he had a couple of ideas and it was all pure gold.

Eric: The idea of having an uncomfortable improv response is what we want. We didn’t want Steve Brule to think about it, we just want to shout, “Talk to us about diarrhea, go!” and get him just stuttering in real time trying to figure out what to say.

Tim: Also, he had this great sandwich here that he became obsessed with and part of him coming here was just thinking about getting that sandwich. He’d just call me and say, “I gotta get that salami sandwich.”

PiQ: How about David Liebe Hart, what’s he like in real life? Do you have political conversations or anything like that?

Tim: Yeah, he’s very passionate about anything you need him to be passionate about.

PiQ: You tend to recruit people from public access and local talent agencies. What makes someone really stand out to you?

Tim: Probably headshots. If a headshot makes you laugh right away, it’s great. One reason the show stands out is that if you look at everything else on television, everybody looks the same. We always push those people to the side and look at the guy with a giant mustache and huge forehead and eyes too close together and cast them not as weird people but as regular people.

PiQ: Has your conscience ever bothered you about things that you get people to do?

Tim: No, everybody in the show is an actor and this is what they want to do with their lives. They’re helping us express our ideas, even if they’re getting s*** dripped on their heads. Nobody’s been physically hurt, so…

Eric: For example, in I Sit On You, people were like, “You made this large man do all these weird moves, how embarrassing.” But he came in the other day and said, “Thank you for making me a star.” It got like 500,000 hits on YouTube and he was getting all this exposure.

PiQ: What kinds of movies and TV shows do you like in regular life?

Eric: I just watched Once on Tim’s recommendation and really liked it.

Tim: Oh, you did? Pretty great, right?

Eric: I loved the ending when they didn’t get together, and that’s when the title just came in: “Once.” Like it’s just a moment, once.

Tim: Didn’t it make you wanna be young again? Just stay up late and do stuff for free? Remember those days? I love that scene in the studio when they’re trying to record. Oh man.

Eric: We both love obscure British comedy, but we also like a lot of American stuff, like Lost and The Office, The Sopranos…

Tim: When I’m really entrenched in comedy I don’t like to watch any comedy, because it just feels like you’re at work and you’re thinking about how stuff works, so I watch a lot of news and documentaries.

PiQ: A lot of your stuff is very musical, like Petite Feet. Have you ever thought about releasing an album or is the visual component too important to lose?

Tim: We’re actually doing a soundtrack for the show right now, all the music for the show and some extra stuff, some songs that have more to them than what’s in the show.

PiQ: What’s the process behind making the music in the show? Some of it’s been shown in the show, just one person plinking on a keyboard and the other singing random stuff. Is it like that?

Tim: Yeah, a lot of times it’s very spontaneous, like Petite Feet we just started singing on a shoot. I’ll usually just get a start on it and then get together with our composer Davin. I make a lot of that very, very lo-fi stuff like for Casey & His Brother.

PiQ: There’s always that one creepy instrument in those songs…

Tim: It’s a synth setting called “LA Forever.”

PiQ: Why’s Casey’s mom such a dick, by the way?

Tim: She’s an alcoholic.

PiQ: So that’s what made him age so severely?

Tim: Yeah, fetal alcohol syndrome.

PiQ: What do you consider your crowning achievement on Awesome Show?

Eric: Probably that we have 20 of these things on TV. It’s an overwhelming feeling.

Tim: I agree, and having them on DVD now where it can really be viewed as a body of work.

PiQ: Why do you think comedy tastes have tended towards absurdism in recent years?

Tim: I would disagree with that. We dabble in absurdism and a lot of other shows on Adult Swim do, but I don’t really see it anywhere else. I see a lot of political humor, like The Daily Show and Colbert, but I think there was more absurdity 20 years ago.

Eric: When people do absurd humor they seem to have to label it: “OK, here’s a weird moment.” Our show isn’t really absurd to us. Some of our bits are out there, but almost everything we do stems from something that Tim and I think is truly funny. It’s just our world.

Tim: I think some people confuse the meaning of absurd as meaningless or without purpose, but there’s lots of meaning in everything we do. It may not be sitting out there in the front to be understood, but it’s not just absurdism for the sake of being absurd.

Eric: If you watch the body of our work you see little things pop up like issues with your dad or whatever.

PiQ: Consumerism and advertising seem to be big themes.

Tim: Yeah, we’re just regurgitating what we watch on television. At least half of Awesome Show is a mirror held up to television and how horrible and nightmarish it really is if you really watch it. You watch something like an Olive Garden commercial and realize that this is a nation of adults watching children’s programming 24 hours a day

Did we ever say this podcast would be a regular thing? Whoops. After a hectic month or so, we finally sat down and got to discuss some of what we’ve been up to, including Kevin’s trip to Japan, the infallible legacy of Upton Sinclair and our collective realization that some games are just entirely too damn hard for old fogeys like us (and we’re not even that old).

More importantly, there’s also our discussion of Issue 2 and all the goodness therein, like how much we dig Sam & Max, Lucky Star, Iron Man, Tim and Eric, action movies, old game shows and pig creatures? Also, we have another sweet prize for those of you interested, so be sure to listen for that too.

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Of course, I read about this in a Japanese women’s fashion magazine, so there may not be a preponderance of scientific evidence to back this statement up. Here’s what the May ‘08 issue of with had to say on the subject:

“The exact opposite of the ‘tsundere’ that’s been so popular the past few years, this new ‘gap character’ is rapidly rising in popularity. The secret to the buzz: the exasperated lecturing behind the soothing exterior, a sharp combination that’s rare to see nowadays.”

One weblog commenting on this brings up Maison Ikkoku’s Kyoko Otonashi as an example of a deretsun kind of personality — extremely nice, often to a fault, but someone who snaps and lets Godai have it whenever he screws up yet another date or whatever.

This strikes me as the sort of personality that people would find attractive only in the world of anime, but…

Anyone following the whole HD format war mess knows that Universal was the one holdout that stood by HD DVD through thick and thin. As the one HD DVD supporter on staff, I figured that it’d be a cold day in Hell when we’d see Universal announcing upcoming titles for the Blu-ray format. Yet, here we are and today Universal did just that.

The first Universal Blu-ray release will come in the form of Heroes: Season Two (along with Heroes: Season One) on August 26. Following that later in the year will be a set of anticipated summer blockbusters: The Incredible Hulk, Wanted, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Mamma Mia!, and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.

The rest of the initial Universal Blu-ray line-up for 2008 is as follows:

• The Mummy
• The Mummy Returns
• The Scorpion King
• Doomsday
• American Gangster
• Knocked Up
• The 40-Year-Old Virgin
• Miami Vice
• End of Days
• U-571
• Land of the Dead

With this announcement, it appears that all the major Hollywood studios are diving full-force into Blu-ray, and so perhaps now the big question is whether audiences are ready to make the leap too. Are you making the HD transition?

This month, our cover story is all about Sam & Max and the history of the franchise, from the games to the comics to the TV series. We also had the opportunity to chat with series creator Steve Purcell and even worked with Telltale games to create an exclusive cover you won’t find anywhere else. For anyone who’s been following the franchise all these years, you won’t want to miss this issue, and even if you’ve never of Sam & Max, you’d be remiss to not check it out.

You’ll also find features on Lucky Star, the new Iron Man movie, Torchwood, Vexille, two Asian film favorites Nana and CJ7, and new games Disgaea 3 and Persona 3 FES. There’s also a pair of Q&As with Tim and Eric from Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! and with Todd Dezago on The Perhapanauts.

In List, you’ll see reviews of some of the most notable offerings for May, like 5 Centimeters per Second, The World Ends With You, Haruka, Dororo and a CLAMP double feature of Tsubasa and xxxHOLiC and more. And for HD enthusiasts, there’s also a look at new Blu-ray releases of Yukikaze, Gattaca and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.

In our Monitor section, we lead off with a big to-do on action movies and how they’ve evolved over the years. Much love is shown for long-forgotten gems like Road House and The Last Boy Scout, we examine how actioners have gone from beefed-up, nationalistic explosion-fests like Commando and Rambo to the comic-based, CGI-laden events of today and because guys tend to blindly eat this stuff up, we even get to hear from the ladies on what’s wrong with action movies today.

After that, we introduce some new regular columns from our contributors, such as Jonathan Clements’ Far West, Amos Wong’s Postcards, Lisa Cooper’s On the BL and Game Person, written by…well, we’ll let you try and figure that out. Speaking of games, Meet the Maker goes into deep, deep undercover and learns about the hard truths of the video game industry in China.

And last but not least, there’s sure to be something for all tastes in our exclusive manga previews this month, with excerpts from CMX Manga’s Batman: Death Mask by manga artist Yoshinori Natsume and Steel Fist Riku by Jyutaroh Nishino.

View larger cover image

People talk about anime piracy a lot these days, but do you see anyone doing anything about it? Of course not. That’s why you’ve got pirates like these operating with utter impunity all across Japanese territory.

If you’re wondering where Crunchyroll’s investment is going, now you know!*

* not really

Virgin Comics announced today that a new animated trailer for Guy Ritchie’s Gamekeeper, the first in a series of new promotional videos for the Directors’ Cut line of books (including Ed Burns’ Dock Walloper and Jonathan Mostow’s The Megas.), is now being featured on MySpace.

If you’re a fan of the action-packed murderation that Ritchie packs into his films, do yourself a favor and catch up with the second series out now. With its distinct cinematic style, it’s no wonder that Gamekeeper is also currently in development as a feature film at Warner Bros.. I think we’ve all been waiting for Guy Ritchie’s film career to get a proper kick in the pants, so this is certainly one to keep an eye on.

Guy Ritchie’s Gamekeeper — Virgin Comics

When in the lovely resort town of Hakone, you should make every effort to take the Hakone Ropeway between Gora and Lake Ashinoko. The website I link to goes on about the breathtaking views of Mt. Fuji and how you can watch sulfur shoot out of the ground and blah de blah de blah, but what it doesn’t mention is that these gondolas get what seem like a good thousand feet off the ground at its highest point. It’s the greatest thrill I’ve had in ages; looking straight down is enough to make you feel like you’re about to lose your balance.

If only they had made the gondolas had glass bottoms… people afraid of heights would probably have nervous breakdowns.

Nearly 13 years after the Aum Shinrikyo sarin-gas attacks on the Tokyo subway that killed 12 people, three suspects — Shin Hirata, Katsuya Takahashi, and Naoko Kikuchi — remain at large, their last known photos still decorating police-department billboards across Japan.

This artist’s rendition (well, OK, more like manga writer’s rendition) of what the three cultists might look like today was found at a local police box in Kyoto. It’s all well and good that the authorities are finding new ways to keep the suspects in the mind of the general public, but — I mean — come on, everyone in Japan looks like this. That’s especially true right now, when it seems like one out of every six pedestrians are wearing cold masks to keep all the spring pollen from bothering their noses.

It may be a little while longer before justice is served, at least until the police hire better manga artists…

I’ll need to drink about this much beer before I ever consider it a good idea again to bring a credit card into a used manga shop. My knees are still hurting from all the books I lugged out of there.