At yesterday’s Watchmen panel, director Zack Snyder and series co-creator Dave Gibbons introduced seven Comic-Con-exclusive teaser posters that recreate the artist’s 1986 house ads for the comic.

Brazilian entertainment website Omelete has all seven character posters. If I can find better-quality versions, I’ll update the post.

(Via io9.com)

Random House’s Suvudu blog has posted the above video from Fairy Tail creator Hiro Mashima’s signing at the Del Rey Manga booth. I love that series.

The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards capped off a busy second day of Comic-Con, one that included big announcements from Marvel, Viz Media and Image, plus a slew of new titles and creator exclusives.

The meaning behind the much-teased “Marvel to the Nth Degree” panel came to light Friday morning in The Wall Street Journal with word that Marvel is reteaming with Stephen King for a “motion comics”-style digital adaptation of his forthcoming short story “N.”

Image Comics revealed a team-up of its own: Six of the company’s founders — Marc Silvestri, Erik Larsen, Jim Valentino, Rob Liefeld, Whilce Portacio and Todd McFarlane — and new partner Robert Kirkman will release Image United, a miniseries starring some of their best-known creations, plus “side characters.”

And after a lengthy delay at the creator’s request, Viz Media finally will release Naoki Urasawa’s science fiction/mystery series 20th Century Boys. The publisher also has licensed his latest work, Pluto. Both will debut in February.

The Vertigo panel unveiled new titles from Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá, and Jonathan Ames and Dean Haspiel, and offered details on the Vertigo Crime imprint, Seaguy sequels, and a hardcover collection of Death miniseries called, naturally, The Complete Death.

Other convention-related announcements:

• Del Rey has acquired several titles, including Shaenon Garrity’s CLAMP in America, Harvey Pekar’s Huntington, W.V On The Fly, Paul Hornschemier’s Life With Dr. Dangerous, and Brenden Burford’s Syncopated.

• Farscape creator Rockne O’Bannon will write BOOM! Studios’ previously announced adaptation of the sci-fi TV show.

• IDW Publishing will release a prequel to next summer’s Transformers movie.

• Dabel Bros. Publishing is adapting The Warriors, just in time for the cult film’s 30th anniversary.

• Artists Khoi Pham and Paolo Rivera have signed exclusive agreements with Marvel.

You can follow our complete Comic-Con coverage here.

The sequel to Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá’s Eisner Award-winning miniseries The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite now has a name and a release date.

Dark Horse announced at Comic-Con that The Umbrella Academy: The Scarecrow Blues Dallaswill debut in November, with Bá providing interior and cover art. (James Jean illustrated the covers for the previous miniseries.)

Way told PW Comics Week that the second volume will deal with the aftermath of the events in Apocalypse Suite: “You immediately start seeing the relationship between the characters, and it ends with a very big climax and some violence. I’m really excited about it.”

Updated Aug. 1 : Per Dark Horse Comics, the title of the next Umbrella Academy mini-series is actually Umbrella Academy: Dallas. We apologize for the error.

It’s been a pretty good week for brothers Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá.

Thursday’s announcement that they’re illustrating the upcoming B.P.R.D.: 1947 miniseries was followed by a Wall Street Journal profile in which Hellboy creator Mike Mignola sang their praises.

Then came news yesterday that they’re creating a 10-issue miniseries for Vertigo called Daytripper, about “a guy who wants to be a writer and how the things you do in your life every day, there’s stuff that can determine what you’re going to do the rest of your life.” (That’s art from the series above, posted on the creators’ blog.)

How do you top that? Well, if you’re Moon and Bá, you win a combined three Eisner Awards: Bá for Best Limited Series for The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite, with Gerard Way; Moon for Best Digital Comic for Sugarshock!, with Joss Whedon; and both for Best Anthology for 5, with Becky Cloonan, Vasilis Lolos and Rafael Grampa.

Plus, they debuted — with Cloonan and Lolos — Pixu, the followup to the now award-winning 5.

All in all, not bad for one Comic-Con. (And there are still two days left!)

The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards were presented last night in a ceremony held at the San Diego Convention Center. Frank Miller was the keynote speaker.

And the winners were …

Best Short Story: “Mr. Wonderful,” by Dan Clowes, serialized in New York Times Sunday Magazine

Best Single Issue (or One-Shot): Justice League of America #11: “Walls,” by Brad Meltzer and Gene Ha (DC)

Best Continuing Series: Y: The Last Man, by Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra, and Jose Marzan, Jr. (Vertigo/DC)

Best Limited Series:The Umbrella Academy, by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá (Dark Horse)

Best New Series: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8, by Joss Whedon, Brian K. Vaughan, Georges Jeanty, and Andy Owens (Dark Horse)

(more…)

Matt Brady accepted the Eisner Award for Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism from presenter Jane Weidlin and a bunch of stormtroopers. Congrats to everyone involved with the site.

I’ll post the rest of the winners when I get the chance.

Viz Media announced today at Comic-Con that it has licensed 20th Century Boys and Pluto, by renowned creator Naoki Urasawa (Monster).

The two titles will be released bimonthly beginning in February.

The publisher initially licensed 20th Century Boys in 2005, but Urasawa reportedly requested it be delayed until after Monster finished its English serialization because his art style had progressed between the two works.

In the award-winning science fiction/mystery series, a man and his childhood friends are drawn into a conspiracy that could threaten the world.

Urasawa’s most recent project, Pluto is a murder mystery that reinterprets Tezuka’s Astro Boy, specifically “The Greatest Robot on Earth” story arc.

Between Slam Dunk, announced last year, Black Lagoon, revealed in January, and now 20th Century Boys, I’m very happy.

Dabel Bros. Publishing announced today that it has acquired the license to create a comic series based on the 1979 cult-classic film The Warriors.

The first issue will debut in January to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the Walter Hill action movie, which was based on the novel by Sol Yurick.

The movie, like the book, borrows elements from Xenophon’s Anabasis, is set among the gangs of New York City. When a charismatic leader is killed at a gang summit, The Warriors are blamed, and their unarmed delegation must make its way back to their home turf while being pursued by police and other gangs.

The Dabels plan to adapt the movie first, and then create spinoff stories focusing on characters from the movie.

The Los Angeles Times reports that BET’s The Black Panther animated series, which debuts tomorrow at Comic-Con, is raising ethical questions about network executive Reginald Hudlin.

Hudlin, who writes the character’s Marvel comics series, helped to relaunch the title in 2005 — shortly before being hired as BET’s president of entertainment. He greenlit the cartoon, serves an executive producer, and is given story credit on at least the first six episodes, which are based on his Marvel comics.

According to the newspaper, some question whether Hudlin’s involvement in the cartoon benefit him financially while conflicting with his duties as head of the network.

Hudlin declined to say whether he gets paid for writing and producing The Black Panther, and whether he would profit from future sales of the series to other outlets.

The creator of Farscape talks about writing “season five” in comics form for BOOM!:

Warner Bros. Animation has released the trailer for Batman: The Brave and the Bold shown today during the Comic-Con panel.

Random House’s new genre blog, Suvudu, previews this year’s Eisner Awards with overviews of the nominees for Best Single Issue (or One-Shot), Best Continuing Series, Best Limited Series and Best Humor Publication.

The ceremony for the 20th annual awards kicks off tonight at 8:30 Pacific in Ballroom 20 of the San Diego Convention Center. You can see the complete list of nominees here.

ICv2.com has a few more details from Vertigo’s Karen Berger on Vertigo Crime, the new imprint announced Wednesday just before Comic-Con.

The line will debut in June 2009 with two titles: Dark Entries, from crime novelist Ian Rankin and artist Werther Dell’Edera; and Filthy Rich, from 100 Bullets writer Brian Azzarello and artist Victor Santos.

According to Berger, the hardcover black-and-white graphic novels will be “pretty much book size,” and run about 200 pages.

The Wall Street Journal spotlights twin brothers Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá, best known for their work, separately, on Casanova and The Umbrella Academy. But yesterday at Comic-Con the two were announced as the artists on Dark Horse’s upcoming B.P.R.D.: 1947 miniseries.

“They’re becoming hot properties,” Hellboy and B.P.R.D. creator Mike Mignola told the newspaper. “If we only get one book from them, that’s more than we deserve.”

Related: A slide show of some of Moon and Bá’s work

After several significant publishing announcements right out of the gate on Wednesday — among them, the Vertigo Crime imprint, Darwyn Cooke’s Parker adaptations and the BOOM! deal with Disney/Pixar — the first official day of Comic-Con seemed, well, subdued. At least as far as new projects go.

The biggest news on Thursday probably came from the “DC Nation” panel, where it was revealed that Kevin Smith will write a three-issue Batman miniseries called Cacophony, which features the villain Onomatopoeia from Smith’s 2000 run on Green Arrow. If you were planning some jokes about whether the miniseries will be late, or never finish, save them: Smith beat you to it.

And, surprising no one, Barry Allen will return in The Flash: Rebirth, by Geoff Johns and Ethan Van Sciver.

The “Mondo Marvel” panel introduced a handful of new titles, including an ongoing Agents of Atlas, Greg Pak and Leonardo Manco’s War Machine as a replacement for Iron Man: Director of SHIELD, the return of Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon for a weekly Punisher: War Zone miniseries, and … an adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s short story “The Electric Ant” by David Mack, with covers by Paul Pope.

Yeah, that last one seemed to surprise, or puzzle, a lot of folks.

At the X-Men panel, the next big X-event was revealed: X Infernus, a sequel, of sorts, to 1989′s Inferno crossover.

Other convention-related announcements:

• Virgin Comics and Perspective Studios rolled out their collaboration with writer Grant Morrison, MBX. It’s an animation franchise based on the ancient Indian epic the Mahabharata.

• Devil’s Due Publishing announced its new online initiative with Kevin Spacey’s talent-scouting website TriggerStreet.com.

• Wildstorm continued its licensing frenzy with a six-issue miniseries based on Electronic Arts’ upcoming video game Mirror’s Edge.

• And then there was the now-usual run of movie news: Bryan Singer’s Bad Hat Harry and Radical Pictures adapting Radical Publishing’s Freedom Formula miniseries; Landscape Entertainment picking up the rights to the Image miniseries Pretty, Baby, Machine, by Clark Westerman and Kody Chamberlain; and Disney renewing its first-look deal with Stan Lee’s POW Entertainment.

You can follow our complete Comic-Con coverage here.

–Cool stuff I picked up Thursday: a collection of art from Cliff Chiang, Necessary Monsters ashcan from Daniel Merlin Goodbrey, All Knowledge is Strange by Goodbrey (which is hilarious) and a War at Ellsmere preview by Faith Erin Hicks. You can get them at, respectively, the Cliff Chiang/Jill Thompson/Brian Wood booth, the AiT/Planet Lar booth (both of the Goodbrey books) and the SLG booth.

(more…)

If you’ve ever been to San Diego and you’ve walked around in the downtown area, then you’ve probably been asked if you wanted a pedicab ride. I think at least 30 of them asked if we needed a lift yesterday. If we were going to pay $30 to have one of them take us to the convention center, this is the one I would have taken.

The A.V. Club talks with brothers/collaborators Jonathan and Joshua Luna about their series Girls, Ultra and The Sword, their work process, and gender issues:

AVC: You work in an industry that’s still heavily skewed toward adolescent male power fantasies, with women as fantasy objects. And yet you consistently focus on female protagonists who come across as very real people. Are you consciously fighting the tide in the industry?

Joshua: No, I think the fact that we did get out of comics for a while meant we weren’t really in tune with mainstream comics when we started making our own. We seriously are making comics from our point of view. We don’t consciously say “Let’s make something different.” It’s just how we see, or what we enjoy, or things that we want. We basically just make what we want to see.

There’s a rising concern in some quarters that Comic-Con International has sold out in ways that go beyond the lack of on-site registration. What once had been an educational community seems to have morphed into a PR-palooza, with the celebration of an art form giving way to corporate hype and celebutards.

For an event such as Comic-Con, complaints like this aren’t just idle chatter. San Diego Comic Convention is a tax-exempt educational charity and, as Blog@ reported last year, leading charity watchdogs have raised serious questions as to whether Comic-Con continues to deserve its 501(c)(3) status.

Does rampant marketing compromise Comic-Con’s charitable mission? A quick legal overview after the jump:

(more…)