#the doomed reputation of this damn franchise hasn’t given me much motivation to work on this idea

[mrultra100]

If I can be real for a moment…

I feel like my involvement with Johnny Test as a franchise is basically over at this point. For those who’ve been with me for a long time now, this might come as a surprise that I’m finally letting go of what people have been referring to as Dexter’s Lab, but with whipcracks after all of these years, but there’s a lot that I wanna get off my chest about the state of the franchise, along with how things will go with my side of the situation going forth.

At this point, I’ve come to accept that Johnny Test, as a franchise, is likely going to stay dead in the water for real this time, especially with how the second season of the Netflix revival not only silently came out with barely any fanfare, but also became the final season, likely for good. I know a big chunk of the JT-related stuff was back when I was obsessed with the Vampire Twins to request art featuring them from multiple artists (Which is something that I deeply cringe at now, and fully regret for how stupid and childish that was. I apologize to everyone for that era), but in the last few years, I’ve been slowly making them more and more into their own thing, distant from what they were originally.

The Ultraverse V-Twins have changed a lot, with things like aging them up and changing their designs to reflect that, giving them more fleshed-out abilities and personalities, and overall just making them my own characters at this point. Don’t get me wrong, they still fit with my Primal Eternity idea, as that’s the one aspect of my JT stuff that I wanna keep around to somewhat of a degree. As for that project’s future? I could think of more ideas for characters and doodle them out, like I have before, or maybe I could take a small break from that project for a while. Im not sure. Regarding the bigger picture, I feel like/hoping to get some more work for it done after this break, before the franchise turns 20 next fall. We’ll just have to wait and see on what happens next. As for now, the V-Twins, while having a small connection to their origin franchise, will be their own thing going forward. Since they’re basically my own character after the series that they were based on is likely going to stay dead for good (which blows, but that’s just how it is), it’s the least I can do for them. In the meantime, Maryanna, now that she’s my mascot, is probably gonna be the hero of her own adventure. Time will tell on how her story will play out.

Regarding other things related to JT, I wanna give a quick shoutout to @rominadrawsart16 and @arti-squid. While they’re more active in the small JT fandom than I am, I love how they use character from the show to further their own skills as artists, similar to what I’ve been doing with Maryanna recently. If you haven’t already, please give them a visit.

And to give my thoughts on JT being dead and buried, I have a few conflicting thoughts. One part of me wishes WildBrain did more with the IP when making the Netflix revival, as alright as that was. Another feels like they should’ve go for a complete reboot to the franchise to start with a clean slate, and another feels like the series didn’t needed a revival in the first place, as shocking as they might sound. Unless the two seasons commissioned by Netflix were all that were planned, Johnny Test wasn’t really a show that needed to be brought back in the first place. After everything that had happened to it (The CW merger that caused the show to suffer budget cuts after Season 1, the infamy it got during the 2010’s due to how it became generic slop, etc), it feels like the show was basically doomed from the start. As much as I wanna go more into that with greater detail, that’ll be saved for another day.

So basically the short of what I’m trying to say is this; Johnny Test, as a franchise, is probably over for real this time, my involvement with it, outside of JTPE and supporting my friends, is (mostly) done, and the Ultraverse V-Twins (especially Maryanna) are here to stay.

See you, Space Whipcrack…