Genndy Tartakovsky, creator of Dexter's Laboratory, and one of the Powerpuff Girls team, showed up at the San Diego ComicCon for the world premiere of his new cartoon Samurai Jack. After the screening, Tartakovsky stuck around to answer questions. Also present were art guy Paul Rudish and Cartoon Network minion Linda Simensky.

On researching Japanese culture:

GT: We really did a lot. We read a lot of books; we saw a lot of films. And I read about all the history…. We tried to stay true to the way of the warrior, the Bushido code, as much as we could. That's kind of what makes Jack straight as opposed to the crazy world around him.

On doing something far removed from Dexter's Laboratory:

GT: I'm a big fan of action shows. If you watch Dexter's and Powerpuff Girls , there's definitely a lot of action. I had a thirst for this kind of show. A show that had some humor, had a lot of action, and beautiful paintings and beautiful environments. And I don't just want to keep doing Dexter's for the rest of my life

On selling Samurai Jack's unique format to the Cartoon Network:

GT: Luckily, we had done Dexter's before, and Powerpuff, so there was an established relationship. One of the outlines actually said, "After Jack builds weapons, 20 minutes of fighting." That was in the outline that I sent to the Cartoon Network. What we talked about when I was pitching the show to them was that this show was going to have the most amazing fight sequences that anybody's ever seen. And we're not going to cheat the audience and just give them two minutes at the very end after 15 story plots. We're going to give them one very thin, clear, simple story plot, and then 15 minutes of action.

LINDA SIMENSKY: I think when Genndy pitched this, there was so much trust for him. There was so much support for what he had done before. And I think we were really just excited about the fact that it was so different and so unusual. We really had no idea what it was going to be like. I can recall sitting in a lot of meetings trying to explain it…. People would say, "Well, is it funny? Is it action?" And I'd say, "Well, it's a little bit of everything. Some stories are funny, and some are more action." But I think that in the end, it's character driven, it's beautiful, it's fascinating, and it's certainly something that will look great on Cartoon Network. From the network side, there were questions about, "What would it be like? It's so different. Will it fit in?" And I think everyone agrees that it fits in perfectly.

I can remember reading the storyboards of episode seven, which had 99 pages of arrows being shot, and nothing else…. And, of course, the film came in, and it's one of my favorites.

GT: This movie will premier Friday night, August 10 at 7:00 p.m. And then the first episode, which would be episode four… we will premier that Monday night, the 13th

LINDA SIMENSKY: After that, they'll run every Monday night at 8:00 and… it will repeat Friday night.

On the things that influenced Samurai Jack:

GT: It's got a lot of influences. I can't say it's one thing, you know. It's everything from Dave Lee pictures to Battle of the Planets to Thundarr the Barbarian….

It's kind of a big meld of everything. I would never want to do a show where we just take one idea from like, Dragonball. It's everything that we've always aspired to be. The stuff that I grew up on as kid, I want to kind of recreate that feeling for myself. And I think that's why we made this show, because, I haven't had those same feelings as when I watched, you know, Thundarr the Barbarian or whatever. That's why I think it comes from a good place. It wasn't like the Cartoon Network said, "Okay Genndy, we need a samurai show."

Will Jack gain friends or sidekicks along the way?

GT: No. Jack is definitely a loner. He does meet up with some people, and we have a recurring character that he kind of befriends, and they have a little fun adventure together.

But the main thing to look for in the series is that the stories are going to be very simple. They're going to be interesting, and "simple" doesn't mean that it's, you know, stupid. Simple means that it's maybe one idea, maybe one and a half ideas that we execute to the best of our abilities through a half an hour. Instead of 15 ideas in a half an hour, or 15 ups and downs. What will make this show so different is that we will tell the stories visually… tell a very simple story visually.

Like, the third part of the movie was montage of building weapons and the rest of it was all fighting. And on television, you'll have 20 minutes of dialog and two minutes of fighting.

On the music in the show:

GT: What we're going to do with the music… Kind of what was in the third act, like combining old Japanese drums with new techno and hip-hop. And through each episode, each new culture that Jack visits or runs across will have its own music. Sometimes we'll combine old traditional Indian music with hip-hop beats and make kind of a meld. And I've been studying a lot of world DJs, like from Morocco and stuff, and there's this kind of underground movement that really sounds amazing, and we're going to try to give you some of that.

On the genesis of Samurai Jack:

GT: I just always loved samurais. That's what I'd want to watch. There's something very heroic, something mythical about carrying a sword and that's all you have to fight with. Instead of, you know… giant robots, even though giant robots aren't bad, but there's something very simple and elegant about a sword. So I decided that I wanted to do a samurai show, and also not do a samurai totally anime style where they would maybe do just a couple of slashes and a cut, and then have tons of blood flying all over. I wanted it to be kind of choreographed. And I realized that if I'm going to have samurai cutting stuff, you can't cut humans on television, so I go "oh, maybe they can be all robots." And that's when the future element came into it.

On the voice talent:

GT: The voice of Jack is Phil LaMarr. The voice of Aku is Mako.

Mako is my favorite actor. He was actually one of the voiceovers at the end of Dexter's…. Mako was my number one choice, and I knew that he was going to be the villain no matter what. You know, everybody saw Conan. You know how you felt when you heard him talk.

Will there be a DVD of the premier episodes?

GT: I think they've been talking about a DVD release in March of this movie.

On cartoon fighting:

GT: One of the selling points of the show was each episode will have its own fighting schtick… So it's not just the same sword action in each episode. In one episode, the one that Linda was talking about, he has to face three blind archers, and they can hear very well, so Jack has to blindfold himself to hear at their level.

How are you going to market such an unusual show?

PAUL RUDISH: Action figures!

Will children be able to follow a show with so little dialog and so many drawn-out scenes?

GT: You know, I don't believe that children are turned off by long dramatic pauses and stuff like that. I think that we sort of disrespect children to a certain degree…. Just because it's a little slow and it doesn't have dialog doesn't mean they won't pick up on it.

What type of animation is Samurai Jack?

GT: The medium is the most traditional animation you can find, except that we put it all together in the computer. It's just a compositing tool. But otherwise, Scott [Willis] paints as classic as you can get, and we draw with pencils and paper, and the animators animate it normally. So, there's no trick. I'm a kind of animation purist. I like the truest form of animation, with great cartoony characters, really fun to watch animation, and good storytelling. So, it's as old as you get.

Will Jack be going to other worlds?

GT: No, he stays on earth.

In the first episodes of Samurai Jack, there are a few in-jokes. Big Dog from Two Stupid Dogs makes an appearance, as do the talking dog billboards from Powerpuff Girls:

GT: Big Dog from Two Stupid Dogs was, I was working really late, trying to finish drawing the dogs, and I go, "Ope, that looks like Big Dog." so that's what I drew. And Townsville…. We all worked on Powerpuff, so we thought it'd be fun…. We didn't want to make a big deal about it, but if you picked it up, great. If not, it's just a rediscovered city.

On Dexter's Laboratory:

GT: There will be new Dexter's episodes. There'll be 13 more half-hours, and they're great. There's plenty of Mandark, and we actually did do Mardark's origins, so you'll know how he came to be.

Is Aku in every episode?

GT: Aku is not in every episode. He fights different minions of Aku. So there is a lot of variety in each half-hour.

Why talking dogs?

GT: Why not? I love talking dogs. I love Hanna Barbara.

On possible controversy over Samurai Jack's high-violence content:

Paul Rudish: People never complain about violence. They complain about sexual references. They complain about innuendo… but no one really calls in about violence…. I'm really not that worried. But, the thing that Genndy smartly did was, you know, Samurai Jack does not fight humans. He fights robots, he fights demons… and, you know, the robot lobby is pretty quiet, you know. So, apparently, it's okay for us to give robots the business. But as long as humans or actual living things are not harmed, it's okay. And as long as it's not imitatable behavior. And certainly, the average person does not have to fight robotic… monsters.

On the Samurai Jack video game:

GT: We talked to a bunch of people about games, and you, gaming is really really hard, because it takes up all our time to do a show, much less help people create a game. It's very difficult. So you kind of have to trust the gaming company to do something unique. I don't know how the game will turn out, but there will be a game.

I am involved in it a little bit. And, I wish I could do more, but, you know, it's about the show first.

Does Jack have any weaknesses?

GT: One of the things about doing this show is that I didn't want to make him like Superman. He's pretty much invulnerable except for kryptonite. I wanted him to have a lot of weaknesses. In this episode, he got hurt a lot, he got beat up. And I think that's one of the keys to making him accessible.

His key weakness is his sympathy towards other people. He had to help the dogs. You know, that's what he does. He'll be faced with a lot of decisions where he can be selfish and go back in time, or he can stay and help out the crisis at hand. And that's kind of like his weakness is that he follows his honor code. He never lies or steals and all that kind of stuff.

On the animation style:

GT: Working through Dexter's and Powerpuff, we developed a relationship with some of the overseas directors. And the team that I picked actually flew in and we stayed for two days and all we did was watch cartoons. And I showed them, "this is why this is great." And I showed them stuff like Tex Avery cartoons, and old 50s and 60s stuff. And I said, "This is what I want. I want this type of cartoony characters, and cartoony animation, but hardcore action. My favorite thing is cartoony stuff, and cartoony stuff can do anything. The last thing I want to see is realistic humans. You know, our job isn't to imitate life, it's to caricature it.