Things get Freudian, Jungian and John Carpenter-ian in the penultimate episode of Venture Bros Season 7. Join @Elana_Brooklyn and @StevenAttewell on a journey up the Hudson River to a real life secret island castle and meet the Villian With 1,000 References. We play Myth Busters about such topics as lawn darts and "chelation". So listen to the podcast here, on Graphic Policy Radio's iTunes or find all of our Venture Bros episodes on this playlist. PS: Here's the short story sequel to The Thing I recommended: Sam J Miller's Things With Beards. Here's the music video of Cult of Personality.

Come for the long game Venture Bros. lore, stay for the explanation of Curtis Sliwa & the Guardian Angels. Which far fetched as it sounds, is a real thing. Our podcast examines the themes of The Venture Bros show and all of its cultural and historical references. In this episode Steven Attewell and Elana Levin draw on their knowledge of NY, pop culture and discuss significant themes this season. Listen here, or on Graphic Policy Radio's iTunes or find all of our Venture Bros episodes on this playlist. PS Elana is on two panels at NY Comic Con: New York TimesOUT presents LGBTQ in Pop Culture and Old Classic, New Voices: Diverse Creators Rate the Comics Canon both on Saturday Oct 6th.

This week's episode, The Unicorn in Captivity is a perfect illustration of why we do this podcast: it is rich with Christ symbolism and Kubrick references. The episode is named after and significantly features one of a series of High Renaissance unicorn tapestries I just so happen to have studied, set in NY's none-more-goth museum, The Cloisters. This is the Venture Bros. podcast for people who want to dig into the narrative parallels between our two unicorns; Rusty Venture and The Monarch as well as the symbolism, the history and philosophical questions raised by the hit Adult Swim cartoon. Steven Attewell examines the episodes' commentary on sci-fi genre paradoxes via Warren Ellis and Fantastic Four comics. And OSI is no longer just a spoof of GI Joe, it's a critique of the military industrial complex. So join us! Here or on Graphic Policy Radio's iTunes or find all of our Venture Bros episodes on this playlist (plus Episode 6 which is here). And comment or tweet me here https://twitter.com/Elana_Brooklyn if you have thoughts about this week's format. We went long this week. I promise you it's worth it.

Ramon Villalobos is a professional comic artist living in Stockton California. He's worked on books for Marvel such as Nighthawk, Secret Wars:E is for Extinction, America, among others and now Border Town (co created with Eric M. Esquivel) for Vertigo Comics. "When a crack in the border between worlds releases an army of monsters from Mexican folklore, the residents of Devil's Fork, AZ, blame the ensuing weirdness—the shared nightmares, the otherworldly radio transmissions, the mysterious goat mutilations—on "God-dang illegals." With racial tensions supernaturally charged, it's up to new kid in town Frank Dominguez and a motley crew of high school misfits to discover what's really going on in this town torn between worlds."

The Venture Bros has rich continuity and character arcs over years. Layer on pop culture and historic reference with thematic significance? It's a lot. So join pop culture & NY history experts Elana Levin and Steven Attewell for our podcast examining each episode of the Adult Swim show. Season 7 episode 6: The Bellicose Proxy Wherein: Newish villain Augustus St. Cloud is exploredArchitecture reveals a lost subway locationThe Guild is bad at being a labor organizationAnais Nin books your mom may or may not have hidden in a closetThe late Burt Reynolds is saluted

How many times did you cry watching The Adventure Time Series Finale? Come along with me as we discuss the meaning of the series finale of this revolutionary Cartoon Network show. We're joined by Oliver Sava who leads the Onion A.V. Club's Adventure Time coverage, also freelancing for Vulture, and Chicago Reader. @OliverSava And Jameson Hampton, a non-binary adventurer from Buffalo, NY who writes a lot of code and reads a lot of comics. They're a regular contributor for WWAC and you can find them on Twitter @jameybash. This episode includes spoilers for the entire TV series. We also discuss what we're looking forward to in the continuing Adventure Time comics series published by Boom Comics. I'm @Elana_Brooklyn on Twitter.

The Venture Brosshow has rich continuity and character arcs that play out over many years. Then layer on pop culture and historic references with thematic significance? It's a lot to sift through. So join pop culture and history experts Elana Levin and Steven Attewell for our Podcast examining each episode of this hit Adult Swim show. This is Season 7 episode 5: The Inamorata Consequence. Learn about the human brain, Fudgie the Whale, yesterday's video games and enough father drama to win a Tony Award. Also, is this negotiation episode a political metaphor? Catch up with the show! Listen to Season 7 episode 1 here. Season 7 episode 2 here, Season 7 episode 3 Season 7 episode 4. And our Season 6 episodes are here(and everything is on Graphic Policy's itunes).

Love The Venture Bros cartoon but afraid of missing the plethora of historical references and layers of meaning behind each episode? Join pop culture and history experts Elana Levin and Steven Attewell for our Podcast examining each episode of this hit Adult Swim show. This podcast is about Season 7 Episode 4: The High Cost of Loathing Professor Attewell puts his campus teaching experience to use explaining Stuyvesant University. I reveal the dark truth behind HankCo's Air BnB, We see parallels to Spider-Man and the works of leading American playwright Arthur Miller. Also, does Sandman hold up? PS learn more about Air BnB here and take action: ShareBetter.org Listen to Season 7 episode 1 here. Season 7 episode 2 here, Season 7 episode 3. And our Season 6 episodes are here(and everything is on Graphic Policy's itunes).

Love The Venture Bros cartoon but afraid of missing the plethora of historical references and layers of meaning behind each episode? Join pop culture and history experts Elana Levin and Steven Attewell (whose secret identity is that he's an actual historian) for our Podcast examining each episode of this hit Adult Swim show. This podcast is about Season 7 Episode 3: Arrears in Science It's got everything from Frankenstein metaphors to the Gershwin Brothers' Synagogue. 60s songwriter/producers including a real life supervillian, mad scientist/ sorry, I mean filmmaker, Werner Herzog and even a famous Manhattan diner. And more resolved plot threads than we've ever seen. This episode goes deep: it's the conclusion to season 7's Morphic Trillogy but also the conclusion to Season 1's Careers in Science and so much of what the show has to say about fathers and sons. Listen to Season 7 episode 1 here. Season 7 episode 2 here. And our Season 6 episodes are here (and everything is on Graphic Policy's itunes).

Love the Venture Bros. cartoon but afraid of missing the myriad of historical references and layers of meaning behind each episode? Join pop culture and history experts Elana Levin and Steven Attewell (whose secret identity is that he's an actual historian) for our Podcast examining each episode of Season 7 of this hit Adult Swim show. This episode is about Season 7 Episode 2" "The Rorqual Affair". The Venture Bros. cartoon on Adult Swim references everything from Hannah-Barbara to Marvel, David Bowie to the Big Bopper, cult cinema to Scorsese, Oscar Wilde to Henry Kissinger. The show's central theme is failure– the reality of life after the promises and optimism of the 60s space age have faded. But also the positive value of failure as a way to learn and grow, of making unpleasant realities better, and ultimately whether you can learn to keep the joyfulness of youth without its illusions. Catch up on our podcasts of Season 6 right here (and on iTunes). And our episode about the Season 7 premiere.