Can you believe it’s almost been ten posts since my last blog update? BAD SOCIAL MEDIA GURU. BAD. The good news is we’ve had plenty of time to review all the spam comments that have appeared on the blog since then. For a long time it was just hiking boot companies and feminine hygiene product manufacturers saying generic stuff like “I agree with what your blog post has to say!” But now the spam has taken a turn for the bizarre. It’s like, snippets of long discussions about OTHER shows, like Master Grade Gundam and Game of Thrones and stuff. Weird, weird, weird. These people don’t even seem to have an agenda. Who are you people? And what have you done with our many fans who write things like “Hooray! Space Pirates in Space is the best web/comic/animated/series/thing I’ve ever seen!”?

A couple of exciting milestones are worth announcing. @SpacePiratesX passed its 1,000th follower on Twitter, although after cleaning out some of the spambots we dropped a little below that. But we’ll get it back! Because you’re going to retweet Space Pirates in Space to all your friends. Right? Right!?

We are also excited because a new permanent cast member will be joining the show in the next episode. Spoiler alert! Who could it be? It’s a mystery. Find out this Friday!

Finally, several cast members will be convening this evening to record dialogue for future episodes of Space Pirates in Space. So stay tuned! The fun is just getting started.

Watch: Episode 01.22 – Let’s Get Naked and Relax

Greetings, brand new pirate fans! You may be wondering, what exactly the heck is going on with today’s episode. You are correct, at six seconds, the episode it is shorter than the intro graphic to the episode. But you have to look at the context. Once it is between 01.12 and 01.14 in a long sequence of scenes, you are going to love it. In the meantime, I love Manchego here. If there is any doubt as to his total badassery, let that be put to rest. The sudden start, the sudden stop, The Man Manchego’s mission. Kleeb’s pounding score.

I love this man.

Watch: Episode 01.13 – My Favorite Scene

Wow. Ten videos. You know, when we first decided to get into this whole web comic / animated series / awesomeness thing, most of the good advice we received was to make at least ten cartoons before you actually post it to the internet. Why? Because before you commit to making an on-going series, you have to make sure it’s something you actually want to do. You have to make sure you’re capable of maintaining a production schedule. If you can do ten, you can do anything!

The Space Pirates in Space team waited until we had forty-something cartoons in the can, because we’re total screw ups and wanted to play it safe. So, good news! You are going to get a lot more Space Pirates, even if we totally bomb now. But we won’t. We’re gonna keep! On! Trucking! Just for you.

Watch: Episode 01.10 – Report to the Bridge Immediately

Not much to report. Production for Episode 2 is well under way. You are going to LOVE it and you don’t even know why yet.

In other news, we deleted a spam comment today from someone called “Boobsods.” We don’t know what a boobsod is, but it will probably be featured in the aforementioned Episode 2.

The Boozy Blog gets lots of spam — but it’s easy to spot. What we do, is we look at the comment, and if it’s on this blog, we know it’s spam. Why don’t you make this job a bit more difficult, and post some comments on the blog? Ask questions! Tell us we suck. Believe it or not, we’ll respond! Trust us. We have nothing better to do.

Watch: Episode 01.09 – Are You Looking at Porn?

Hey, this is a bit behind, but here’s a post on episode 01.08. What is there to say? Great interplay between Aaron and Chris in this one, and dang, Arth can deliver a thunderous speech.

Watch: Episode 01.08 - This Is Your Captain

I’ve often wondered what the limits of our little endeavor are. A web comic could never do what we did with this episode. It just goes to show the special stuff that an animated web comic can do that a regular web comic can’t. What do you all think? Did we pull it off?

This episode also introduces one of the most beloved characters among the cast and crew, Gunnery Sergeant Abe Manchego. Just wait until he speaks. Know him. Love him.

Til next time, pirates…

Watch: Episode 01.07 – Enter Manchego

One of the great things about working on Space Pirates in Space is the ensemble. We are a collective creative organization, rather than the brainchild of a single creative mind. The best part for me is working with the many talented actors who voice characters on the show. On most animated series, like The Simpsons or Venture Bros, the same five or six actors voice almost every character on the show. We take the opposite approach, and try to bring in as much talent as possible. You’ll see this more as the show progresses, but for now I wanted to introduce you to one surprising actor.

My ITP classmate Ryan Viglizzo was nice enough to do a cameo as Dave, the groovy partygoer who haplessly answers Arth’s phone call to the Merry Tassel. Ryan is not an actor by trade, merely a smart and freakishly athletic displaced Californian studying here in snowy New York City. His smooth and natural easy-going voice gives Dave the authenticity that role requires.

1,000,000 thumbs up!

Watch: Episode 01.06 – Very Odiferous

There are buckets all over my apartment, to catch the last remnants of Hurricane Sandy and the runoff from my perpetually defective sink. The bad weather hasn’t done too much to derail Space Pirates in Space. Our release schedule has remained intact, and our numbers are about what I expected at this point in the game.

But there has been a pretty substantial loss of power and transportation to much of New York City, which means I haven’t been able to get to school, and that has had an effect on SPiS that you wouldn’t expect. Classmates with far greater technical know-how than I have been doing lots of wonderful work for me, including whipping the website into shape. The week before Halloween, we were about halfway there, and planned on doing the other half Monday the 29th. Miss Sandy had other plans.

And so you’ll notice the bottom half of our website still looks like yesterday’s newspaper. School starts up again this week, so hopefully I can get someone to do my job for me, and clean up all that social media stuff soon. This is important because it allows you, loyal readers, to follow the Boozy Dragon with ease.

While we still have our scaffolding up, get a head start on staying up to date by following us on Facebook and Twitter, and do us a kindness by sharing our show with your friends and family. Spreading the word is reward enough for us.

Watch: Episode 01.05 – A Bucket or Something

You’ll notice that I have changed our method of notation for individual episode chapters. There is kind of a science to coming up with something that works. It’s harder than it looks. For one thing, there is the question of how to break down and define the individual cartoons that make up the SPiS story. Our team has a lot of story to tell, enough at least for several seasons worth of traditional broadcast television. (You heard it here first, folks. We know exactly where we are going, and we know how we are going to get there (at least I do.))

For the most part, these stories will be broken down into episodes that are about thirty minutes long (also like broadcast television). Each episode is then broken down into smaller videos, which are the semi-weekly updates that you have been watching and enjoying. Internally, we have been calling these videos “chapters.” (Actually, for the most part we’ve been calling them “Ep-cha-uh…what were we calling these things again?”) This is the breakdown. 30-50 chapters make up an episode. Several episodes make up a season, and several seasons would make us really happy. That said, we reserve the right to play with form as we go forward. I am really interested in playing with our web comic roots, and having a collection of one-off cartoons, rather than thirty-second increments of a longer story (not all the time, just when we write stuff that we think is funny).

So now the old notation probably makes sense. 10103 means (Season)1(Episode)01(Chapter)03. Oy. But now we’ve simplified it! Episode 01.04 means Chapter 04 of Episode 01. Done and done.

Another consideration is cramming all the text we need into Youtube video titles and tweets. When the title of your video is “Space Pirates in Space: Episode 01.03 – The Sinister Voice of Artholomew Marvelas,” those 140 characters go pretty darn fast.

We are learning as we go here, people.

Watch: Episode 01.04 – Captain Dave

New chapter day! And an extra special one. Introducing new cast members, the Captain of the Boozy Dragon, Arth Marvelas, and his first mate, Lieutenant Jaime Conchord. LOVE these kids. I hope you do too.

Not just characters debut today, but collaborators as well. Sir Chris Hejl and Her Ladyship Aaron Ballard are also making their debut, as the voices of Arth and Jaime. Check them out on the Links page. They are oh so cool.

And this chapter also is the first instance of our original 8-bit musical score from composer and technomancer Mark Kleback. Check out his stufffff. It is cooooool.

If you’re digging Space Pirates in Space, tell the world! It keeps the funny coming.

Watch: Episode 01.03 – The Sinister Voice of Artholomew Marvelas