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Post by fatshadowmaster on Jul 20, 2007 19:55:50 GMT -5
The character yes. The show no. It was on Nickelodian, that's probably why.
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Post by FratMonkey on Jul 20, 2007 20:37:06 GMT -5
It was on Nickelodian, that's probably why. Yeah. thats pretty much the reason why it got canceled, there was some pretty creepy stuff in the show (awesomely creepy).
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Post by FratMonkey on Jul 20, 2007 20:38:09 GMT -5
Oops, I think we scared away A New Species.
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Post by Spark on Jul 20, 2007 21:43:57 GMT -5
Who cares if it was creepy? It was freakin' awesome! Bring back the Zim!
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Post by FratMonkey on Jul 21, 2007 0:05:15 GMT -5
Hey, I said it was "Awesomely Creepy"
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Post by greyloch on Jul 21, 2007 0:36:38 GMT -5
Yeah, Zim was a great show. But someone pointed out to the Nickelodeon executives that the show was about an interstellar terrorist. This was just shortly after 9/11 so they had a knee-jerk reaction (or just a jerk reaction ) and yanked it. And they own it outright, not even the creator can shop it around to other networks/studios. Nickelodeon instituted a new policy after they sold "Doug" to ABC/Disney. Disney turned the show around and made it a moderate success so they now hold onto all intellectual property no matter if it was flop or success. They look at it as not giving their competion any sort of advantage against them. Unfair, yes, but again this is just business. It was a bloody miracle that Palisades got the license to make action figures. But Palisades went under about a year ago and was bought out by another company so if you liked the Zim toys, grab them when you can, no more are coming out. It does suck about Palisades, tho. I think they stretched themselves out too thin with licenses that didn't sell as well as they expected (Zim, Muppets, Micronauts, mini statues, et al).
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Post by fatshadowmaster on Jul 21, 2007 0:51:21 GMT -5
I miss some of Pallisades stuff.
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Post by Squishee Slinger on Jul 21, 2007 22:04:58 GMT -5
What people don't realize is even if Nick hadn't killed ZiM the people working on the show were about to have a major mutinity anyways Vasquez and Ressel hated each other. Jhonen thinks he knew everything despite not ever being trained in the animation business and Steve Ressel hated his diva I am a comic book gawd attitude. Jhonen hated the nickelodeon brass and anyone in any kind of authority or expertise in animation. I've talked to Steve Ressel several times on AIM and he said had Nick not pulled the plug when they did the creative team were ready to storm out with all the silly conflict surrounding them. ZiM will never come back anywhere because despite the great product it was for it's short run most of the key people involved in it just weren't long term compatiable.
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Post by FratMonkey on Jul 21, 2007 22:33:47 GMT -5
What people don't realize is even if Nick hadn't killed ZiM the people working on the show were about to have a major mutinity anyways Vasquez and Ressel hated each other. Jhonen thinks he knew everything despite not ever being trained in the animation business and Steve Ressel hated his diva I am a comic book gawd attitude. Jhonen hated the nickelodeon brass and anyone in any kind of authority or expertise in animation. I've talked to Steve Ressel several times on AIM and he said had Nick not pulled the plug when they did the creative team were ready to storm out with all the silly conflict surrounding them. ZiM will never come back anywhere because despite the great product it was for it's short run most of the key people involved in it just weren't long term compatiable. Just wondering but how do you know all this? Because I've never heard any of this before.
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Post by FratMonkey on Jul 21, 2007 23:01:00 GMT -5
I've never heard that Jhonen and Steve hated each other. Or that the whole Zim crew was about to walk out. From what I understand, Zim had very low ratings, and was tossed around a lot on the Network, allowing few people to catch it. This led to even lower ratings and eventual cancellation. Also you sort of made Jhonen Vasquez sound like a power hungry @$$ hole, when in real life he is a very cool guy. I've met him several times at a signing at a comic book store near my house. He claimed that when working on Zim, he had no idea what to do in animation, due to lack of training in the area. Nickelodeon's biggest problem with Jhonen was that he likes to interpret "mature themes" into his work. Out of the several times I met Jhonen, I once asked about his working relation to Steve Russel. He said that they had few problems and got along well. Also I've read interviews with several of the writers and Voice overs from Invader Zim, and they all said they liked working with Jhonen because he allowed all of them expressive freedom.
Now don't misinterpret this message as me telling you that you are wrong or something, I am simply stating what I know.
P.S. I've never met Steve Russel before though. Do you have his E-mail address by any chance?
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Post by FratMonkey on Jul 22, 2007 13:32:45 GMT -5
Well, after doing some research on Vasquez/Russel rivalry, I discovered it was not Jhonen the Invader Zim crew had a problem with, it was Steve Russel they had the beef with. Thats why he doesn't appear in any of the commentary on the Invader Zim DVDs. Also on the commentary he is shot down a couple times by some of the people working on the show. I'm not sure why they hated him though.
Also Jhonen did not hate Nickolodian, nor did Nick hate Jhonen. Jhonen had problems with them because most of his ideas were scrapped because they were supposedly "too violent" or "not funny". I've never heard anybody from the Zim crew that claimed to dislike Jhonen. They said they liked his Noobish attitude to animation because they were able to submit many different story parts into the show.
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Post by fatshadowmaster on Jul 22, 2007 18:06:34 GMT -5
So, what about sending those e-mails? ;D
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Post by Squishee Slinger on Jul 22, 2007 20:03:50 GMT -5
I said this because...
"I've talked to Steve Ressel several times on AIM..."
I don't buy Jhonen never had any problems with Nick. I've heard on several occassions there was growing animosity from both of them over the dark humor and direction of the show. He said several uncomplimentary things about the network on several occasions especially after thay canned his cover art for the second DVD because they thought it was unnecessarilly voilent. The bottomline is Nickelodeon wants their shows more kid friendly and mega bland and if Jhonen had his way with the show it would haven't been kid appropiate at all. It wasn't a marriage that was going to work and I'm not fooled by the happy face spin you see put on it these days. i mean jhonen wanted to kill off several characters in very violent ways that were edited and changed.
Steve Ressel is a control freak and thinks a lot of himself. He's a type A personality who demands things be meticulous to detail and gets upset when people don't agree with his direct. Jhonen is much the same way I'm told by people who do not idolize him. Again, conflicting personalities who are wired close to the same way. Things came up that they could find little compromise on. Jhonen is probably more likeable by most people so I can understand people taking his side on things but steve knew what he was doing in animation so I find is laughable that he's been made the scape goat by all the jhonen fans. If it were not for both zim would not have been as good of a product. Steve kept the stories focused and the show well directed. Jhonen delivered the creativity and the madness we all love. Without either of them ZiM would have been crap. I wouldn't assume Steve was a pile of crap either just by a few snarky comments on the commentaries either. Jhonen was there for most of it so it's likely the people were playing up to him. It's just like when you have two type A personality bosses and you like to play up to either one when the other isn't around.
I'm not a Jhonen or Steve fan so I've tried to be objective and see the thing from the outside as a few of cast members told it on the message boards I used to visit. I respect both for their talents and know both have big egos that limit their ability to work with others as well. I loved ZiM and I think both and all the others in the cast and crew for making it a fine quality program during it's short existence on the airwaves.
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Post by FratMonkey on Jul 23, 2007 0:32:23 GMT -5
Yes, I agree more with you on that message more than the one before. It sounded like you were making Steve Russel the hero and Jhonen Vasquez the power hungry bastard. I didn't mean to say Steve Russel was a piece of crap though, He is just more of a control freak than Jhonen is. Since your not a Jhonen fan, I guess your not familiar with his comic books but Many of them contain violence (especially his book Johnny The Homicidal Maniac). However, the way he delivers the violence is very unique. He has the uncanny talent of making things like blowing up someones head to ripping someone in half very funny. It's hard to explain how he does it, but he just does. I believe MTV or cartoon network was rather interested in buying the Invader Zim copyright laws, but was put down for really no reason. Nickelodeon had little to no use for the show, but wanted to keep the copyrights locked up deeply inside their Treasure Chest of shows too good to exist. Like I said before, I don't know much about Steve Russel, but I am fairly familiar with Jhonen. Through meeting him and reading many of his books, I can tell that Jhonen had a rather crappy high school life. Even when he graduated he was probably still mocked by the people around him for looking "Creepy" or "Wacky". I think out of all this he developed his rather large ego, to be able to keep himself sane through constant mockery. He often criticizes his own large ego in Johnny The Homicidal Maniac. I respect him for acknowledging the fact that he is a bit of an @$$ himself and is not always right. And back to Nick vs. Jhonen. I wouldn't use hate to describe their relationship, I would use a word more along the lines of "Problemed". Jhonen likes violence and revenge, but Nick does not. They seeked Jhonen out to make a show that was aimed more to their older audience. Jhonen was a bad choice. Adult swim or MTV would probably have been a better place for Jhonen to work than Nickelodeon, home of The Fairly Odd Parents and Spongebob. Oh and I have seen the rejected cover for the Invader Zim DVD cover and I personally thought it was very cool. It had great detail and color work. I can see why Jhonen was mad about it being rejected. I sort of feel for Jhonen getting angry at Nick, as I am planning to major in art when I go to college, and know how hard it can be when you spend weeks and months putting a piece of art together, only for it to be coldly rejected in saying, "you didn't do it right" or "I said curved lines, CURVED!" Anyways here's the pic or the rejected Zim cover, in case anyone wants to see. My opinion? Totally awesome.
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Post by FratMonkey on Jul 23, 2007 1:04:03 GMT -5
Oh, yes. I took a picture of Jhonen once when I met him. I thought I'd upload it. He's kind of pale in the photo. ;D
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