Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Gone But Not Forgotten...


IGN's latest Lost in Translation blog post gives Megas a shout-out, "Even though it came out in 2004, the series also makes numerous pop-culture references that have stood the test of time (well, as much a test as 6 years is…) well."

Damn, it's been that long since we were shut down?

Well, keep checking back in for more badassery and news on upcoming projects for 2011, including Motorcity - a sci-fi action series that'll be re-uniting the team behind Megas, Orion - a live-action show for SyFy, and a as-yet-unnamed 100 page graphic novel project so chock full of giant robots, it is destined to blow minds.

Have a safe and happy holiday season!

Saturday, October 30, 2010

A Very Merry Megas Halloween...


An amazing Megas costume made by Jeff Smith for his son Tyler. The fingers move and there is a speaker system that was blasting riffs from the show. And if that don't say love, I don't know what does!

Rock on guys!

Monday, October 11, 2010

Hammer-down for Motorcity-town!

Cat's officially out of the bag as today Disney announced the series pickup of Motorcity - one of the projects I've been working on with pal and fellow Megas XLR and Downtown collaborator Chris Prynoski.

Look for ass-loads of over-the-top car vs. robot action as a great team of artists and writers has been assembled to blow your pre-and-post pubescent minds.

(And yes, there will be chicks with ninja swords - except they'll be laser-swords. And the chicks will be robots. And so will the swords. Oh, and the cars too.)

Sunday, August 29, 2010

And Japan Too, I Guess...


Interesting article on Z-Chan.com about the cross-pollination of anime, that not only mentions my pals' Emmy-winning series Afro Samurai, but another much more lowbrow show about giant robots bashing the crap out of each other...

Friday, August 20, 2010

Poll Position


Although, it's only been a few weeks since SyFy's announcement of our new project Orion, the interweb has already lit up - with more lovers than haters, interesting to note.

In addition to the articles and forums, a few polls have sprung up as well - with Orion in the lead so far.

Glad to see that there is excitement for a new space opera!

Friday, July 30, 2010

Imagine Greater...



This morning, Variety broke the story on my new project at SyFy:

"Orion, described as National Treasure meets Firefly, is a space opera centering on a female relic hunter and he(r) team. The crew looks to sell valuable items on the black market while avoiding bounty hunters."

I'm lucky to be working with a great team including Ryuhei Kitamura (director of Midnight Meat Train), F.J. DeSanto (producer of The Spirit), as well as Dirk Blackman and Howard McCain (the team behind Outlander).

Look for more info soon!

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Hot & Heavy Q & A


Part two of Screw Attack's Megas Q&A - yeah I know it sounds sexy, but it's actually not.

Enjoy!

Thursday, July 8, 2010

The Force is Strong


For those in the area, I'll be speaking at the annual Ohio Star Wars Collectors Summer Social this Saturday in beautiful Lake Milton, OH.

Not sure what the topics will be. Something about some "Space Wars" movie and the junk they put out to promote it or something...

Monday, June 28, 2010

Me Talk Pretty One Day


Super-Otaku, WB animation producer and good pal Will Feng will be hosting me on his panel "Breaking into the Animation Industry" this Saturday at Anime Expo. Stop by, say hello and nerd out.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Megas Media Round-Up


Strange Kids dig giant robots, yet another list that pairs us with Invader Zim on the awesome scale, and part one of a Q&A on the genesis of Megas with yours truly.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Wichita Digs Giant Robots

Megas got a bit o' love in today's Examiner.com article, Americanime 101: Megas XLR.

To quote Wichita, "The show aired on Cartoon Network's Toonami block, back when it ran on Saturday nights. Why the show was cancelled remains a mystery as it was a great show that had a lot of potential. It had great action, a rock oriented score, and was packed to the brim with great jokes and dialogue."

Always cool to see the show bob up here and there in the pop culture mind-stream.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

The Zim-Megas Connection...


So I've noticed that Zim and Megas seem to be rubbing elbows on a number of "Best Of" lists - most recently; "Sketch's Top 5 Great Cartoons Cancelled Before Their Time."

I find this interesting as both of our shows were considered to be "failures," but for some reason, they still seem to keep popping up in the zeitgeist...

I've discussed this at length with Jhonen and we've come to the conclusion that this psychic residue may be a side- effect of the fact that while he sacrificed human souls to the Dark Ones to power Zim, we sold our fealty to the Machine Gods - both of which are almost as powerful and undying as the corporations that own our creations, but certainly not as vengeful...

And with that, a quote for the ages:

"It was a show for this generation to be sure. In the height of giant robot series featuring mal-adjusted bishounen teenage protagonists fighting only because they were forced to it presented the exact opposite in Coop the 20 something out of shape gear head who fought in his giant robot to have fun while saving the world was mostly an afterthought. "



Sunday, May 16, 2010

Anime Expo Panel - July 3rd @8PM


Anyone interested in the animation industry, how to break in, and/or anime's influence on domestic productions - come on down to Anime Expo on July 3rd, room LP2 at 8PM as a number of my colleagues in the biz including William Feng of Warner Bros. Animation and I will be talking about the joy and the horror of making cartoons...

UPDATED: So the panel is officially titled "Breaking In! Working in Animation!," Room LACC 502.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Wait for it...


These guys got it right. Proof that chicks do indeed dig giant robots.

And we dig chicks who dig giant robots...

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Megas FAQ - The Anniversary Edition


(This pic makes me happy - check out the attention to detail: Mega-slushes, Coop with like six burgers, and they're at a Five Guy's Burgers - one of my favorite joints. Well done gents & Neko Sasuke Kun!)


In honor of Megas' upcoming Sixth Anniversary on May 1st, here's the answers to the six most popular questions that have crawled their way across the internets to my inbox.

Without further ado...

6. Where can I see Megas?

Officially, you can find both seasons for purchase and download on iTunes, Zune and Roadrunner. Unofficially, I know Youtube has all the episodes posted, but I think they' re cut into thirds. There also seem to be quite a few foreign sites that host full episodes, with varying levels of quality.

And I've heard from a number of fans that Megas seems to still be on the air in various countries across the globe - just not here in the U.S....because that would make all the other shows look bad...

5. Where's the Megas toys?

I was actually in a Toys R Us a few years ago, hunting for some damn Star Wars exclusive repaint that Hasbro was tricking me into buying for the sixth time when I overheard a distraught mom asking the customer service rep this very same question. And all I can tell ya, is what I told her, and I'm sure you'll be just as pissed - there really are none.

If you missed out on the online exclusive four-inchers, or the DC Direct statue you're pretty much out S.O.L. Jolibee put out a couple of items a few years ago with their happymeal-style promotions, and although they rocked, I wouldn't really class them as toys. (More like trippy cup lids).

Now should Megas ever be revisited, this may change, but as of right now - ebay, or making your own customs is the way to go.

4. How did the soundtrack come together?

We ran out of money. Simple as that. Our soundtrack budget was pretty much zero, so after we blew what we had on the opening theme, we were forced to use the Turner Library to pull almost all of our tracks and needle-drops - that's why you can hear "Megas" music on CNN, TBS, TNT, etc. Luckily, Turner owned a massive music collection that actually had a lot of great tracks - tracks that made for excellent robot-fightin' mood-music.

And no, there are no plans to release a soundtrack - although it would cost CN about two bucks to do it since they already own the rights to all the tracks...

3. Will there be a third season?

I've learned never to say never in this business - stranger things have happened, and although there has been some interest in revisiting Megas by a third party, it seems that CN kinda has their dance card full of robot shows currently. Also, since they own the rights, and hold all the cards, it falls to them if they want to do anything with Coop's little DIY project.

If it were up to us, we'd be well into our sixth season right now, and in fact when CN pulled the plug, we were writing a feature and roughing out a third season.

2. Where is my damn DVD/Blu-Ray set!?

Ah, yeah I get this question about once a week and the answer is - never. Or at least I don't know. Again, since the show is owned by CN - it is their call to either release the series, or not. And so far it's been not.

As for Blu-Ray, from what I recall, we actually did the second season in HD with the intention of broadcasting and releasing it in high definition, but obviously that plan fell by the wayside with our cancellation.

Not sure how much it would cost to put Megas on DVD, or BR, but with the whole market collapsing in on itself, it just might be a bad time.

But there is this guy who has a bootleg table at all the cons...

1. Why did you shut down Megas?

Truth be told, CN shut us down, and not the other way around as some fans have conjectured. As to why, the new brass didn't feel that we were speaking to the audience they were interested in reaching, even though we were actually breaking records - until they started moving us around.

Not sure if they ever did find that demo they were hunting for...maybe those live-action series did it for them?


That's it for now. This Saturday, celebrate May 1st as Megas Day - watch an ep, have six hamburgers, a mega-slush and creep out your pals with your giant robot trivia knowledge while vomiting on their shoes - just like Coop would!




Wednesday, March 31, 2010

I Like Big Bots, and I Can Not Lie...


I think it's safe to say we all share a love of giant robots here, and although Megas has been off the air for a number of years, I bring you a message of hope - from the future: the robots shall rise again...and they will be giant...

No, Megas ain't coming back - at least not anytime soon. (Although I hear CN's ratings are slipping to the point where they are about to fall below Boomerang's numbers, which is just astounding.)

I'm talking about new horizons - live action and graphic novel-type horizons. Aspects of the entertainment-industrial complex that we have yet to defile with our madness.

Against all odds, and Hollywood's current remake-fervor-trend, my pals and I sold a two hour pilot for a cable series, that if all goes well, may just blow minds. And in the same day, a very cool publisher decided to take a chance on another original pitch for a 90 page comic.

And both have giant F-in robots wrecking crap...

Megas was just the tip of the chaos-iceberg...

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Anime Expo


For those of you checking out this year's Anime Expo, looks like a few of my fellow creators/anime dork pals and I will be speaking on a panel or two. Will post more info as soon as I have it. Until then, start building your Megas cosplay gear...

Thursday, March 4, 2010

The Examination of Megas


A recent Examiner article breaks down Megas. Not bad - it make us look kinda smart, as if we knew what we were doing...

And the above image has nothing to do with Megas - I'd just love to see Captain Harlock (yes Harlock) take on an Imperial fleet.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Friday, February 5, 2010

Megas Makes Another List



Tomopop.com nerds out about Megas in a recent article/list - "While it's a canceled show from an American network, there is no reason as to why Kaiyodo can't make my dreams come true make a Megas Revoltech. The do-all mecha has only seen two releases, an extremely limited action figure only offered on Cartoon Network's online shop and a statue from DC Direct. The main reason I'd like to see a Megas XLR Revoltech is that it truly embodies the super robot spirit."

Super robot spirit...I like that.