The Orlando MegaCon has announced their guest list for their big event, coming up next Feb. 27-March 1. You can check out the complete press release after the jump.

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Let’s take a moment and congratulate the X-Men on moving their base of operations after nearly 35 years of letting their mansion get blown up time and time again.  Man, last year it was like a sport!  For a secret school for ‘gifted children’, they weren’t so secret nor nearly as gifted as they wanted to be.  Sure, they changed it over the years, shucked that school image, tried ‘Institute’ or ‘Corporation’ on for size but still the effect was the same.  Xavier’s cash kept that place rebuilt and Forge and the Shi’ar tried to give it a decent defense system, but apparently that only worked on maybe the paper boy because the last few years have been hard on the place.  Once Sentinels park on your lawn, consider this a good time to move and leave no forwarding address.

And it is a good time to move; there are so many big events happening just down the road in the Marvel Universe and yet the X-Men tie-ins have seemed more like afterthoughts.  They’ve never really jibed well with their fellow hero brethren, that whole ‘world that fears and hates you’ losing a little of the impact when you’re pals with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes and Marvel’s First Family.  Moving to the west coast is a particularly brilliant move for the X-Men, getting them away from the rest of the heroes in a more physical fashion, changing their address, their outlook on life, and hey… why not their style?

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Images of yet another playable character have been released for LEGO Batman: The Videogame. This time it’s the World’s Greatest Butler — Alfred Pennyworth. G4 has more images, but after the break you can watch Alfred in action, armed with nothing more than a serving tray and a stiff upper-lip.

The game hits stores on Sept. 23.

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• Screenwriters Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay (Aeon Flux, The Tuxedo) will pen Columbia Pictures’ adaptation of Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s series The Boys. Columbia optioned the comic back in February. [The Hollywood Reporter]

• Just how dark can Warner Bros. go with the Superman movie reboot? Kevin Smith, Jeph Loeb, Mark Waid, Steven T. Seagle and Michael Golden weigh in. [Splash Page]

• Despite an announcement made yesterday by Herge Studios, Steven Spielberg’s representatives say he’s committed to directing the first film in the planned Tintin trilogy for DreamWorks. A spokesman for Herge Studios, which holds the rights to the property, had said Peter Jackson was moving into the director’s chair. [The Hollywood Reporter]

• Director Edgar Wright provides updates on Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and Ant-Man. [Wizard, via Cinematical]

• Although rumors had circulated that 20th Century Fox was scrapping the adaptation of Dragonball, the studio apparently is releasing a trailer on Oct. 17. [ComingSoon.net]

• Marvel’s Avengers movie could shoot at Toronto’s new state-of-the-art production facility Filmport. [Hollywood North]

Newsarama’s Steve Fritz spoke with Brooke Burgess recently, and the animator let slip some details about an upcoming project:

“What’s really cool is that my old partners from Saints, Ian and Andrew, nabbed the rights to do the animated version of Batman: Black & White from Warner Brothers,” says Burgess. “I’ll probably get in trouble, but they are taking the original Black and White stories, and are giving them the Saints treatment. I think this will be going on DC Online or some other Warner site, probably also Apple.

“I’m just consulted a bit on this project. I’m happy to let Ian fly on this one. We’re also going to have voice actors like Michael Dobson on it, as well as a couple of other very talented friends. It’s going to look really neat and super, super stylized.”

I’m going to guess he’s talking about another Motion Comic, like Watchmen.

Hairy Green Eyeball offers a slew of strips featuring Al Capp’s great Dick Tracy parody.

After years of countless Tintin parodies and homages, it seems the executors of Herge’s estate, Moulinsart, have entered a serious lockdown mode. Last week, for example, there was this story of how they played hardball with the author of a book which imagined a much older and depressed Tintin, who is reduced to reporting on the lives of shallow celebrities:

Publisher Paco Camarasa explained that Moulinsart first tried to pressure them into pulling the book from stores, before then agreeing to let it be distributed until the first 1,000 copies were sold. In exchange, Edicions de Ponent promised not to reprint the book ever again.

Although Moulinsart did not consider the illustrations that come with the text as infringement of any copyright laws, the estate concluded that the book “perverted the essence of the personality” of Tintin.

Which strikes me as odd, as I don’t remember them ever complaining about this book. Anyway, according to Forbidden Planet, now Moulinsart is going after the fan Web site Ojectif Tintin, slapping them with a cease and desist letter:

Their complaint ? Objectif Tintin used elements from Hergé’s oeuvre in their logo and illustrations (even though, as Didier Pasamonik asserts on Actua BD, this is fully covered by the Belgian quotation law), and they mentioned or even advertised events that were not licensed by Moulinsart. In other words, Objectif Tintin, in their attempt to be an objective (hence the name) and complete source of information for Tintin fans, failed to ask Moulinsart first if they could publish something.

I remember seeing tons of pornographic, satricial and otherwise outright snotty Tintin parodies when I was over in Europe way back when. Is it just the upcoming release of the Spielberg/Jackson film that has the company so on edge?

Don’t ask, just click.

Everyone else is linking to this, so I figure I should, too. Plus, it’s really kinda awesome.

– Kai-Ming Cha looks at First Second’s plans for the upcoming Prince of Persia book.

– Wil Moss talks to Comics Foundry masterminds Tim Leong and Laura Hudson.

– RedOrbit talks with British cartoonist Posey Simmonds about her latest graphic novel, Tamara Drewe. I just read an advance copy by the way and it’s excellent. Keep an eye out for it come September.

– Paul Levitz discusses digital comics with Laura Hudson.

– John K. finds wrinkles hard to draw.

– Bob Levin on the problem of keeping yourself out of your story. Or not as the case may be.

– Ted May ponders the whole “death of the indie pamphlet” issue.

James Jean, whose distinctive painted covers have helped to set the tone of Vertigo’s Fables for the past six years, is leaving the series with February’s Issue 81.

Jean, who wants to devote his time to painting and personal projects, made the announcement today on his website:

I first received the call to create the first cover to Fables in October, 2001, a month after my roommate, Yuko Shimizu, and I watched the twin towers crumble from our loft in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Not long after, I got on a plane to Austria for 3 weeks and watched news of the anthrax scares from abroad, returning home to a message from Vertigo comics on my answering machine, asking me to create the first five covers to Fables. Now the suspected sender of those anthrax-laced letters has committed suicide this month, and we’ve gone 2 terms with a war-time president. In between, I’ve been fortunate enough to have done a lot of illustration. But for the past year or so, I’ve stopped working for magazines, books, and advertising as I tried to make the transition towards my personal work . . . until now, Fables has represented the last vestige of my illustration career. Now it’s onto personal projects full-time.

Jean won five back-to-back Eisner Awards for Best Cover Artist for his work on Fables and other titles, and another for Best Short Story for his collaboration with Bill Willingham on Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall.

If this week’s shipping list is any indication, we may have reached the Dog Days.

For those with extra cash in your pocket — hey, gas has dropped 15 cents a gallon, right? — Marvel is releasing the hardcover Daredevil By Brian Michael Bendis Omnibus for $100. If you’re looking for something a little less expensive, Wednesday also sees the premiere of the third volume of Runaways, by Terry Moore and Humberto Ramos.

DC says good-bye to Catwoman and hello to two more Final Crisis tie-ins: DC Universe: Last Will and Testament and Superman Beyond.

Elsewhere, Dark Horse collects Chris Onstad’s popular Achewood comic, Abrams spotlights Al Jaffee’s Tall Tales strips, and Image debuts Guerillas.

To see what other titles Chris Mautner and I think are worth mentioning, just keep reading. As always, let us know your choices in the comments below.

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TAKE THAT received a video this morning, emailed from a mirror satellite that sent it directly to every email provider, blog and news site throughout the internet. In our efforts to warn the world, we’ve transcribed the contents of that video here. Please read and pass along. Warn the world. They’re coming.

“Hi, Super Skrull here.”

“I left my last battle with the Fantastic Four, supercharged with hate for you Earthlings and your heroes, and so I made this video. It’s a little ramble filled in places and just for clarity’s sake I’d like to simplify things a little. I think there’s a way for the glorious Skrull Empire to invade Earth, conquer it, kill your heroes and make everyone happy doing it. I don’t claim to be right, but I think there could be something to this.”

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Fans won’t be seeing an adaptation of Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s Preacher on HBO.

Mark Steven Johnson, who wrote the pilot and was set to serve as an executive producer, tells Comics Continuum that the new head of the cable network thought the series “was just too dark and too violent and too controversial.”

“It was a very faithful adaptation of the first few books, nearly word for word,” says Johnson, who directed Daredevil and Ghost Rider. “They offered me the chance to redevelop it but I refused. I’ve learned my lesson on that front and I won’t do it again. So I’m afraid it’s dead at HBO.”

Plans for the one-hour TV series, announced in November 2006, were welcome news for fans who had been disappointed when a previous attempt to adapt Preacher as a feature film was abandoned.

Johnson says there are efforts to give a movie another try: “I’ve heard someone is in the process of getting the rights to turn it into a feature film. I hope that happens. But I hope it happens as a series of movies as one movie couldn’t do it justice.”

Publishers Weekly confirms reports circulating yesterday that Virgin Comics has shut down.

The company’s New York City office has closed, and its eight-person staff laid off. According to the trade paper, the closing only affect’s the company’s U.S. publishing operations.

An official announcement is expected soon.

Founded in 2006, Virgin Comics was a high-profile joint venture between billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, author Deepak Chopra, filmmaker Shekhar Kapur and the India-based comics publisher Gotham Entertainment.

Virgin Comics focused on three publishing lines: Shatki, which reimagined traditional Indian mythology and history; Director’s Cut, which showcased concepts by filmmakers such as John Woo and Guy Ritchie; and Voices, which showcased concepts by actors and musicians like Hugh Jackman, Dave Stewart and Nicolas Cage.

Comics creators involved in some of the titles included Mike Carey, Garth Ennis, Jeff Parker and Alex Ross.

Despite the big names attached to some of the titles, and the deep pockets of the company’s founders, Virgin Comics never caught on in the direct market.

Few topics stir up fans of superhero comics more than character deaths and reboots. So, in a curious coincidence, what subjects do you think the top editors at Marvel and DC tackled over the weekend?

In his weekly “MyCup O’ Joe” column, Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada addressed his often-quoted — but, perhaps, out-of-context – “Dead is dead” statement from early in his tenure:

Eight years ago, my feeling on comic deaths was pretty specific — they were just being handled too willy-nilly, and thus were losing their impact. What I set out to do was challenge my editors and our creative teams to up the ante when it came to character deaths, because I felt that there was no longer any impact.

The rule of thumb I wanted to use was simple, discounting cliché deaths like the supervillain getting “washed away in the river” to his supposed death. This rule only pertained to significant deaths and significant characters. The rule was you had to have a plan. Way too often, I would see creators kill off a major character without a plan as to how to replace them or how to resurrect them in a way that would be as meaningful as the death. Too many characters were being killed for the sheer shock value of it, and without any story-driven motivations.

Phrases like “significant characters” and “significant deaths” leave me wondering about those B- or C-list characters who tend to serve as cannon fodder in “event” comics — to demonstrate how ruthless a villain is, or how high the stakes are. Or who get killed again and again. And again.

Meanwhile, at Fan Expo, DC Comics Executive Editor Dan DiDio lamented his company’s eagerness to revamp characters:

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Amazing Joy Buzzards/Aqua Leung writer Mark Andrew Smith dropped us a note about a contest the art site Satellite Soda is holding. The deadline for submissions is midnight Pacific Sept. 23:

To celebrate the second volume of Amazing Joy Buzzards titled “Monster Love” (Well, technically it is the third volume and all-new material) in November, Satellite Soda is having an Amazing Joy Buzzards art battle where the winner’s pin-up will be printed in the new volume of Amazing Joy Buzzards.

It’s going down here! Be sure to check in often and watch the battle as it unfolds!:

http://www.satellitesoda.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3691

Woodring Simulacra is a blog devoted to real-life objects that look as though Woodring drew them. Jimland Novelties, meanwhile, is a loose collection of mini-comics, commercial art and other oddities.

Noting that DC’s Jonah Hex title is drawing some great artistic talent — Darwyn Cooke, J.H. Williams, Jordi Bernet — Don MacPherson talks to Williams and co-writer Justin Gray about the allure of the book:

“I think what you see happening is basically this: Hex is an intriguing character written well by a team who put a lot of thought and care into what they are doing,” Williams said. “It’s also not a super-hero title, which is attractive to folks like myself, a western with mostly one-shot stories. You just can’t beat that combination. This is why you see artists wanting to do this title.”

Hex co-writer Justin Gray agreed.

“Some artists come to Hex because they like the book and are looking to do something different. Sometimes it is a love of the character, and sometimes it is a desire to work on stories that allow them to illustrate stories that they might not normally be offered,” he said. “That’s the beauty of doing a single-issue story format; it allows an artist to dive into a project that is short and sweet.”

Cooke stops by in the comments section to share his thoughts as well. Interesting stuff on a good book.

Eisner-award winner Fabio Moon says one of the reasons he and his brother Gabriel Ba don’t draw superheroes for Marvel or DC is because “we are not fit for it.” He then shares this drawing of The Thing:

Me, I can think of plenty of reasons why they might want to focus on their own material versus working on superheroes for Marvel or DC. But not being fit for it? That’s just crazy talk.