I am – Hercules!!
To celebrate the DVD release this week of “The Venture Bros.'” second season, the magazine Reason just posted a long interview with series mastermind Jackson Publick. Here’s what he has to say about the Venture boys' butterfly archnemesis, The Monarch:

I love old Spider-Man comics, but when I read them I wonder, what the hell do these guys want? What makes you put a costume on and start chasing somebody around? What makes you have a lifelong commitment to resenting a specific other human being? Because it's so pointless we've purposely made it more so. Also, I've known a couple of trust fund kids. Their goals are strange and take... a little longer to get to than some people who have to work a little more. It's pointless.

One thing undiscussed is why Christopher McCulloch wrote on the “Tick” series under his own name, but adopted the pseudonym “Jackson Publick” for his “Venture” venture. That was explained in this year-old Suicide Girls interview. Read the new Reason interview here. I am – Hercules!!

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