This Saturday saw the premiere of Axe Cop based on the webcomic/Dark Horse comic as part of Fox‘s new latenight block of animated shorts, Animation Domination High Def. The early Nielsen ratings estimate that that half hour averaged a 0.5 rating in adults 18-49 and 1.5 million viewers overall. That’s up from the previous week’s repeat of Hell’s Kitchen which had a 0.3 rating and 1 million viewers.

Axe Cop makes up 15 minutes of that half-hour block, and High School USA the other half. That matches the first-season average of the initial telecasts of FX’s Archer in the same 11 p.m. half-hour during the 2009-10 TV season. In total viewers, Archer averaged nearly 1 million viewers. Archer has since grown and built a loyal audience and changed time slots. The rating is also similar to Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim at that same time block.

This is an experiment by Fox to expand its animated offerings and grow new concepts. There’ll be more announced for the ADHD block, but the network is waiting for these initial shows to establish themselves. The prospects look good for the long-term as Fox has college football which will end between 10 and 11 when it returns later this summer. That should pair up nicely with these shows.