Yeah, I don’t know if you could fit this story in two hours. It would have to be truncated in some way. Although, maybe he had a different concept when he was thinking about it as a feature. I suppose we’ll never know, which is sort of a shame because you have a show this good and a character this fertile and still you can’t get people to do 2D animation. You can get them to do bloody talking CG trucks for days, but you can’t get this made. I think it’s just some sort of weird entertainment company mentality now: “You can’t do flat animation. You can’t! You can’t!!” Well, yes, you can, and in a lot of ways it actually looks better, communicates better, and tells a better story than the CG. Maybe I’m biased though.

No, I mean there is such a beautiful look to it all, even if it is flat. It’s stuff that seemed ahead of its time 15 years ago and actually feels more appropriate with today’s sensibilities. Like of course it’s coming back now. It makes perfect sense to return.

It’s interesting because when we first did the show everything was still pretty much analogue. It was all painted backgrounds. Each storyboard artist also came up with each story—they were writers. There was no separate writing staff and artistic staff. It was all one. That in itself was incredibly unique. It’s interesting because the problem with digital animation at this point is that you don’t get the personalization anymore. An artist can’t get his style in there because it’s not his hand. It’s a keyboard, or a mouse, or a Wacom pen. The computer sort of takes the individual style out of it, or, you need to be incredibly proficient to get your personal essence through all of that technology. Nowadays, very few people have that. However, if you’re a creator it becomes much easier to stay on model because you make the model and then you hand it off. It’s not going to change.

Were you thinking about this property a lot during the time that it was gone? Was it the sort of world that you were missing and wondering what Jack was up to every so often? Did you have any idea the fandom and love for the series was so severe?