ICv2.com reports that, in response to increased interest in Watchmen spawned by the movie trailer, DC Comics has ordered a 200,000-copy new printing of the trade paperback.

The trailer, which accompanies The Dark Knight, sent the collection of the 1986 Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons series rocketing up the Amazon.com and USA Today bestseller lists.

Retailer Brian Hibbs notes that Watchmen has flown off the shelves of Comix Experience in San Francisco:

Last Tuesday I had what would normally be a month’s worth of WATCHMEN in stock (and if you remember back to last week’s post, WATCHMEN was my #2 best selling TP in the last 12 months, so we’re talking about a real number of copies). Every single copy sold out by mid-Saturday morning. The calls have been coming in by the dozen or more a day “Do you have WATCHMEN?!?!”, so I’m going to go on a limb and suggest that no one in San Francisco has them. I put in a direct order for a “3 month supply” that I should have tomorrow, but even then I’m going to order another big stack on my next reorder cycle (unless I pay a LOT for shipping them faster, reorders take about 10 days to show) just to cover my bets (it’s not like, worst case, we won’t sell them *eventually*)

Update: The Los Angeles Times puts the print run at 250,000. And director Zack Snyder, passing along figures from Warner Bros., says 75,000 copies of Watchmen were sold just last week.

On the heels of the recently announced DC Comics and Invincible “motion comics,” Marvel is expected to reveal a similar initiative today at Comic-Con: It will adapt a never-before-released Stephen King short story as an animated series.

This is the “Marvel to the Nth Degree” announcement the publisher has been teasing: The story, called “N,” comes from King’s upcoming short-story collection Just After Sunset.

The Wall Street Journal reports the 25-episode series will be distributed online and via mobile channels in advance of the book’s Nov. 11 release. Beginning Monday episodes will be released daily, five times a week, through Aug. 29. iTunes also will sell pass for all of the two-minute episodes for $3.99.

This is the fourth venture between King and Marvel: The publisher previously has released two miniseries based on his Dark Tower books, and a 30-issue adaptation of The Stand debuts early next year.

You can see a teaser video for “N” after the break.

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One of the best items to come out of the “Mondo Marvel” panel is the announcement that the quirky and wonderful Agents of Atlas — comprised of characters from the 1950s Atlas era — will get an ongoing series beginning early next year. The team, which debuted in a 2006 miniseries, last appeared in Secret Invasion: Who Do You Trust?

“I want to keep up the ‘modern pulp’ approach we used in the mini,” writer Jeff Parker tells CBR, “where sometimes you’re in an espionage story, sometimes it’s sci-fi, and it can easily go into mystery and horror very quickly. And we have much inner space of our cast to explore.”

Although Leonard Kirk drew the Agents of Atlas miniseries, he’s now working on Captain Britain and MI:13. The name of the artist for the ongoing is expected to be announced soon.

Bryan Singer’s Bad Hat Harry Productions is teaming with Radical Pictures to develop of live-action adaptation of the mecha miniseries Freedom Formula.

Radical Publishing is introducing the five-issue series this week at Comic-Con, and will release the first issue in August. (Newsarama spoke with Radical’s Barry Levine about the title last week.)

The comic, created by Edmund Shern, is set in a future in which racing exo-suits have replaced fighter jets. The story centers on Zee, a genetically engineered racer who transforms himself into the hero of a dying city.

Singer and Levine will produce. Jesse Berger, Edmund Shern, Alex Garcia and Michael Zoumas will be executive producers.

This is the second comic-book adaptation this week for both Bad Hat Harry and Radical. On Tuesday, Warner Bros. announced it has optioned Rob Liefeld’s upcoming comic Capeshooters for Singer to produce. That was quickly followed by news that Hancock director Peter Berg will produce and develop Hercules: The Thracian Wars for Universal, based on the Radical miniseries.

Landscape Entertainment has grabbed the film rights to the Image Comics miniseries Pretty, Baby, Machine, by Clark Westerman and Kody Chamberlain.

The comic, which debuted in May under the Shadowline umbrella, is a crime thriller set during Prohibition as gangsters Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson and Machine Gun Kelly unite to challenge Al Capone.

Landscape president Bob Cooper will produce, while Brian Truman will oversee the project. Rodney Wilson and Westerman will be executive producers.

Disney has renewed its first-look deal with Stan Lee’s POW Entertainment.

As part of the two-year agreement, which covers TV, movies, games and other media, Disney has greenlit Time Jumper for distribution across multiple platforms.

The project revolves around an agent of a secret government organization called H.U.N.T. — Heroes United, Noble and True — who has a cell phone that doubles as a time machine. When his brother is lost in time, the agent must find him before a criminal cartel does.

Disney Interactive Media Group’s Disney Online and Disney Publishing Worldwide also will develop their own content based on Time Jumper. A comic is planned, too.

Lee set up three other projects with Disney in April: Blaze, Nick Ratchet and Tigress.

One of the things I appreciate about new Superman writer James Robinson is his possessiveness / protectiveness of Jack Knight, the character he co-created and wrote from 1994 to 2001 in Starman.

During DC’s “Superman: Man of Tomorrow” panel earlier today, Robinson was asked by an audience member whether Jack might appear in his Superman run. His answer?

“When you retire a character, you open him up to the potential that he might appear in books that you don’t want him to appear in, or be handled by other writers. Long answer short, no. But I have brought back Krypto.”

One bit of news that came out of Marvel’s X-Men panel this afternoon is the next X-event: X Infernus.

Or perhaps it’s “Ex Infernus”; I’ve seen it both ways already. Marvel Marketing Manager Jim McCann referred to it as Inferno 2, so make of that what you will. (X-Men: Inferno was a company-wide crossover in 1989 that involved a demonic invasion of Earth, starting with New York City.)

The five-issue miniseries, which debuts in December, finds the horrors of Limbo unleashed upon San Francisco — new home of the X-Men. The focus this time won’t be on the entire Marvel line; instead the spotlight will be on the mutants and Illyana Rasputin, aka Magik.

“She wants her soul back and she’ll kill however many demons and people as it will take to do so,” Editor Nick Lowe told CBR.

C.B. Cebulski is writing the miniseries, but the artist hasn’t been revealed. David Finch will provide the covers.

MoviesOnline has the Comic-Con teaser poster for Robert Rodriguez’s Red Sonja. Announced last month, the movie stars Rodriguez’s financee Rose McGowan.

Although initial reports had Red Sonja set for a 2010 release, the poster clearly says 2009.

Update: A second teaser poster can be found after the break.

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Spurred by a game of telephone involving Joel Silver’s supposed comments on a German radio show, rumors circulated last week that Keanu Reeves will star in the Wachowskis’ long-discussed Plastic Man movie.

It’s nonsense, of course. This afternoon at Comic-Con, Reeves told MTV’s Splash Page that while he’d like to work with the Wachowskis again, it won’t be on Plastic Man.

“In fact,” MTV’s Josh Horowitz writes, “it was pretty clear that Reeves had never even heard the rumor.”

Meanwhile, just days after speculation emerged that I, Robot director Alex Proyas would be helming a Silver Surfer movie, he denied the rumor to a Comic-Con crowd.

But nature, and the rumor mill, abhors a vacuum. So, Superhero Hype asked Torchwood star John Barrowman whether he would be playing Captain America in the upcoming Marvel movie. Barrowman apparently said he likes the character and would love to play him: “Clearly, though, the notion did not take him by surprise and he ended up admitting there had been discussions with his agents and meetings on that very issue.”

Today at Comic-Con, Lionsgate revealed artist Timothy Bradstreet’s poster for Punisher: War Zone.

The movie, which opens on Dec. 5, stars Ray Stevenson, Dominic West, Doug Hutchinson, Colin Salmon, Wayne Knight, Dash Mihok and Julie Benz.

With Trinity #8, our heroes can indulge in a bit more introspection before the action starts up again. So far, I like the rhythm this series has established. It’s a good mix of action and theme-building, with neither part dominating for too long. While Trinity has the freedom to move at its own pace, it hasn’t taken undue advantage of that freedom to get stuck on any one subject.

In this regard I wonder how much it resembles the old World’s Greatest Superheroes newspaper strip, which (from what I understand) had a tour-of-DC aspect similar to the “Justice League” animated series. I get the feeling that those works, like Trinity, wanted to capture the feeling that anything could happen at any time, so that you should expect to get your 22 pages/20 minutes/3-4 panels’ worth from any given installment.

Speaking of which, time’s a-wastin’ — let’s get on with this issue!

SPOILERS FOLLOW

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• Hugh Jackman’s appearance at the tail end of this afternoon’s 20th Century Fox panel sent the 6,000-seat Hall H into “pandemonium,” according to The Hollywood Reporter’s Risky Biz blog and EW’s Popwatch. Jackman, there to promote X-Men Origins: Wolverine, left the stage momentarily to shakes hands with Wolverine co-creator Len Wein. (The panel apparently was delayed because scaffolding supporting drapes collapsed in the rear of the room.)

• On Tor.com’s new blog, David Moldawer reports that in this morning’s “75 Years of Doc Savage” panel, producer Michael Uslan “let slip” that there’s a Man of Bronze movie in the works.

• As predicted, Twilight devotees were out in full force, jamming Hall H for the Summit Entertainment panel. MTV Movies blog says that, “Thousands of fans stretched nearly a mile, many of them lining up Wednesday evening.”

• This is either some strange harmonic nerd convergence, or a WTF moment: Watchmen director Zack Snyder tells MTV’s Splash Page that My Chemical Romance — fronted by Umbrella Academy writer Gerard Way — will cover Bob Dylan for the movie’s soundtrack.

• Scott Robins, who used to write the All-Ages blog, is covering Comic-Con for Good Comics for Kids. Welcome back, Scott.

Big Shiny Robot talks with storyboard artist and director Ben Jones about working on the DC cartoons, and moving away from “the Bruce Timm style” for the upcoming Batman: Brave and the Bold:

The thing is, there’s only one Bruce Timm.  If you look at the timeline of when the shows were made, you’ll notice that Bruce is busy on other stuff, either JLU or the DCU videos.  So he’s just not available, to begin with.  You could, I suppose, try to mimic his style for your show, but that’s kind’ve weird for a variety of reasons, especially when he’s sitting just down the hall.  So in the end, you’re generally better off doing your own thing than trying to be a second-rate Bruce Timm.

The interview includes exclusive looks at Plastic Man from Brave and the Bold, and Jones’ designs for Red Tornado.

Wildstorm moved further into licensed comics as Electronic Arts announced today at Comic-Con that the DC imprint will produce a limited series based on the upcoming Mirror’s Edge video game.

The first-person action-adventure game features moves inspired by parkour and free running as the playable character Faith moves through a mirrored city, trafficking packages for the criminal underworld while trying to free her sister from a corrupt government.

The six-issue miniseries is written by Rhianna Pratchett, who wrote the game’s script, and illustrated by Matthew Dow Smith. The book will introduce Faith and her fellow “Runners.”

The first issue is being distributed at Comic-Con.

Related: The Los Angeles Times looks at EA’s first comic-book miniseries Dead Space, which launched in March.

Virgin Comics and Perspective Studios at Comic-Con today announced a collaboration with writer Grant Morrison called MBX, an animation franchise based on the ancient Indian epic the Mahabharata.

The re-imagining of the epic tale of two families at war is the flagship title of the joint venture between Virgin Comics and Perspective, a producer of digital animation. The two companies plan to develop several MBX animated projects, including a feature film and video games.

The animation for MBX will receive its public unveiling later today at the convention.

The press release can be found after the break.

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Apparently Twitter is having issues and dropped a bunch of our feed’s followers. I understand they’re working on the problem, but thought I’d throw up a link to remind folks we’re still out there:

http://twitter.com/NewsaramaBlog

Traffic in front of the convention center is murder. The bus driver said they’re diverting all cars to the stadium now, as parking here is completely full. She almost took out a couple of petty cabs on the way in .. she wasn’t something you wanted to dally in front of. Folks on the bus and in the Grant Morriosn/Stan Lee panel (which hasn’t started yet) are very enthusiastic and just seem happy to be here, despite any inconveniences caused by traffic, crowds, etc.

More later …

• The Hollywood Reporter spotlights the “10 most influential forces in the comic book movie universe,” from Kevin Feige and Paul Levitz to Frank Miller and Mike Richardson.

• Speaking of comic-book movies, USA Today looks at how Comic-Con “treats filmmakers as royalty.”

• To The Hollywood Reporter, a busier Preview Night apparently signals an apocalyptic tipping point for the convention.

• MTV’s new Splash blog has the first look at the cover of the Heroes, Vol. 2, graphic novel.

• AICN gets a sneak peek at art from Marvel’s upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand.

• Cinematical has a good shot of the X-Men Origins: Wolverine teaser poster, while Slashfilm gets upclose with the Owlship.

• Although Doctor Who and Torchwood showrunner/writer Russell T. Davies is supposed to be on a panel today, he never got on the plane in Cardiff. A BBC spokesperson told The Los Angeles Times’ Geoff Boucher that Davies was busy working on Torchwood and just couldn’t leave. Cue disappointed fans …

• The LA Times’ Jevon Phillips rides Fox’s City of Ember “publicity train” from Los Angeles to San Diego.

• I love these branded room keys some Comic-Con hotels are using.

• As JK pointed out earlier, blogger/retailer Chris Butcher is uploading tons of convention photos to his Flickr account. (It has 45 images already!) JK, of course, already posted a bunch of Preview Night photos; Blog@ has a San Diego-specific photo gallery, too.

Marvel Studios has staked out summer 2010 for its Iron Man II and Thor movies — that was announced back in May. But what will it do with Edgar Wright’s adaptation of Ant-Man?

It could be destined for a Christmas 2010 release. That’s according to Georg Szalai of The Hollywood Reporter‘s Risky Business blog, who spoke to Wright over the weekend.

Szalai points out that Marvel executives prefer “the warm months” for their movies. However, Ant-Man “plays more tongue-in-cheek than some of the company’s other properties.” (Ignore that he gets Ant-Man’s abilities wrong.)

Wright has said Ant-Man isn’t really “an out-and-out comedy.” However, that certainly doesn’t rule out a lighthearted tone that fits in with the often more family-oriented holiday slate.

Late July, and thoughts turn to roving bands of the costumed damned.

Yeah, it’s another cheap shot at Comic-Con, but it’s still funny how the show syncs up with the October solicitations. There’s not that much in this set of solicits, since the big news is waiting to be broken out west. Still, we’ll soldier on here.

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