Is Invader Zim Coming Back?

Almost a decade ago, Invader Zim, a highly praised Nickelodeon cartoon show created by Johnen Vasquez, was canceled for various reasons. Despite this, the fan base has remained strong all these years; so strong that Viacom-released DVDs with unaired episodes have come out with above average sales. Recently, however, there has been large activity surrounding Invader Zim that might give clues that something big is coming for the evil green alien. Are we jumping to conclusions or is there really something more for? Find out after the jump, stinking human.

A user on roomwithamoose.com noticed several Invader Zim activities and brings up some good points.

1. Zim reruns return for a month, and its heavily promoted.
2. A new Zim game is added to Nick.com
3. The Zim DVDs are re-released at an expensive price of $50 for all 27 episodes
4. And the biggest clue of all…this Nick.com message board thread started by a moderator of the board.

The first two are legit, as it is pretty random to heavily promote Zim reruns for a month (all of March) and add a (poorly made) Zim game to their official website all of a sudden. Not only that, but the new Zim DVDs are very expensive when compared to the previous 3 Volume DVD Set, since the new DVD doesn’t have the unaired episodes from Season 2. Lastly, a forum thread asking if you want Invader Zim back is basic forum activity, except this is a moderator posting it.


Going beyond Nick, Jhonen Vasquez, the mastermind behind Invader Zim, posted 31 “Invader Zim Facts” in his blog, including a bonus one that connects Invader Zim to Portal. They’re quite humorous, but don’t expect anything realistic beyond the Portal fact. I doubt Rikki Simons was really interrupted in an interview by an entity that attacked everyone in the room.

Probably the biggest event involving Zim right now is Invadercon, a fan convention celebrating the 10 year anniversary coming next March. The voice of Invader Zim and Producer/voice of Gir will attend the convenction. Yes, an entire convention about Invader Zim! Yet, it’s not affiliated by Viacom at all, and that’s the giveaway.


There is equal plausibility that the new flash game and month of Zim is just a way to promote the new DVD because the old ones did so well. The moderator just knew that a new Invader Zim thread would be very popular at the time and still is. Vasquez’s blog took a lot of planning and could be mere coincidence. As much proof that there could be of a renewal in the works, there hasn’t been any mention of it by Vasquez, and Invader Zim without Vasquez is like Cloverfield without J.J. Abrams. Unless he or Nick says it, there’s no official proof, only assumption. The fans have done so much and their continuous love of Invader Zim has gotten them new unaired episodes, but they have not yet pulled a Family Guy or Futurama. Still, is it really hard to believe that these aren’t all by coincidences? No, not really.


UPDATE: Read our update on the campaign here!